John Reuben Thompson,‘The Late Edgar A. Poe', Southern Literary Messenger

Thompson (1823–73) was a poet and journalist who owned and edited the Messenger (1847–60). He met Poe in Richmond in 1849 and presumed much on a rather slight acquaintance. He later expanded this notice into a popular lecture on ‘The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe’ — ed. and arranged by James H. Whitty and James H. Rindfleisch (Richmond, 1929) — but he was often an unreliable witness.