ABSTRACT
Simms (1806–70) was an eminent novelist, poet, critic, editor, and Southern apologist. He detested what he saw as the Northern dominance of American letters, and wrote this essay in response to press attacks on Poe following his poetry reading débâcle at the Boston Lyceum. The essay was immediately reprinted by Poe in the Broadway Journal,and used by him to initiate a new assault upon the Boston ‘Frog-Pond’.
