Philip Pendleton Cooke, from a letter to Thomas White in the Southern Literary Messenger

Cooke (1815–5o)came from a well-known Virginian family with wide literary pretensions and contacts (John Pendleton Kennedy was his cousin). Poe cultivated Cooke's friendship — he professed to admire deeply his sentimental magazine verses like ‘Rosalie Lee’ and ‘Florence Vane’. Cooke's letter was first printed in the Richmond Compiler,it was then reprinted by White in ‘Opinions of the Press’ on the covers of the Messenger. It is not clear what Cooke meant to indicate by his asterisks.