[Nathaniel Parker Willis], review in the National Press: A Home Journal

Willis and George P. Morris founded the National Press: A Home Journal in February 1846; in November it began to appear under its more familiar subtitle. On his return from Europe in March 1846, Willis found Poe in a pitiful condition: he was ill, poverty-stricken, hounded and ridiculed by his enemies over the ‘Literati’ papers, and deep in scandal and litigation. Willis's article was less a review than a gesture of friendship and support for Poe (The Raven and Other Poems had been in print for almost a year); and it was followed by a well-meaning but insensitive plea in the Home Journal (26 December 1846) for Poe to be treated as an object of public charity, and placed in a special ‘Hospital for Disabled Labourers with the Brain’ — see Sidney P. Moss, Poe's Major Crisis, pp. 139–42.