[John Neal], pre-publication notices in the Yankee and Boston Literary Gazette

Neal (1793–1876) was a flamboyant, controversial author from Maine. His extravagant romances were considered outrageously frank, and so were his ‘Carter Holmes’ articles on American authors (1824–5) in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. He edited the Yankee during its two-year existence. Poe acknowledged that Neal was the first to encourage his literary ambitions; and although the two men never met, Neal followed Poe's career with interest, and wrote a generous defence of him in the Portland Daily Advertiser (23 April 1850).