Individuals >> Gardette, Charles Desmarais ( Saerasmid ) (1830-1884)

Poet, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Journalist.

Charles Desmarais Gardette’s work includes fiction, poetry, and essays. In May 1858 his "Kino: a Mystification of the Crescent City" appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine. Like some of his compatriots at Pfaff’s (Aldrich, Nast, Shanly, and Arnold), Gardette tried his hand at writing for children, publishing the didactic Johnnie Dodge, or, The Freaks and Fortunes of an Idle Boy in 1868. In 1873 he wrote a series of articles for Appletons’ Journal. He was also affiliated with the Philadelphia Evening Journal and Record, as well as the New York Evening Post (Clark 260-261).

Gardette may best be remembered for his involvement in a minor literary hoax that resulted in a querulous correspondence with Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie Gardette later gathered together and published. Following a discussion with friends over whether or not it would be possible to write an imitation of Poe’s distinctive style, Gardette composed "The Fire-Fiend" and sent it to Harper’s Magazine to fulfill the terms of the bet. Harper’s declined to publish it, but sent it on to Henry Clapp at the Saturday Press, whom Gardette had not yet met. The poem appeared in the New-York Saturday Press on November 19, 1859. Gardette’s brief note of introduction to the piece states that it was an early Poe manuscript written "while experimenting toward the production of that wondrous mechanism ’THE RAVEN.’" The note claims that Poe put the manuscript aside and, rediscovering it later among his papers, sent it to a friend with the instructions to take 30 drops of laudanum and read it at midnight by firelight. Gardette skirts the issue of how the manuscript came into his possession.

The hoax would confound critics on both sides of the Atlantic. A letter in the London Times suggesting that Poe may have plagiarized "The Raven" from an "Oriental poem" was answered by "’The Lounger’ of the Illustrated Times, Mr. ’Flaneur’ of the Morning Star, the editor of The Reader, and, we believe, in other London papers. One of these writers [the actor Macready] mentioned the on dit that Poe had written a poem, in a metre resembling that of ’The Raven’; that, having laid it aside as not good enough for publication, he had worked some of its lines into ’The Raven’, and that the manuscript of the rejected poem was in possession of a gentleman of Philadelphia to whom Poe’s mother-in-law (Mrs. Clemm) had given it" (Gardette, The Whole Truth 9-10). Such is the summation of the case by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, then editor of the Philadelphia Press, who published an editorial on September 30, 1864, entitled, "Poe’s Raven: Whence came it?" In a letter to Gardette that was later published, Mackenzie stated that his goal in the editorial was "vindicating Poe from the charge of plagiary,[sic] and mentioning that the other poem alluded to had repeatedly, within the last seven years, been published under the title of ’The Fire Fiend: A Nightmare--from an unpublished manuscript of the late Edgar A. Poe, in the possession of Charles D. Gardette’" (Gardette, The Whole Truth 9-10). Mackenzie characterized Gardette as one who "dabbles" in literature and has been disseminating Poe’s early, unworthy manuscript for "several years" in the hope that his name will be associated with the great poet. Upon reading Mackenzie’s remarks, Gardette wrote to him and the two exchanged a volley of letters over the grammatical correctness as well as authenticity of the manuscript and the truth of accusations that it had been published elsewhere.

Mackenzie’s refusal to publish Gardette’s later letters led Gardette to collect the entire correspondence and to publish it with prefatory remarks and endnotes as The Whole Truth in the Question of "The Fire Fiend" (1864). He clarifies that the poem was "written as a hoax, published as a hoax, with an editorial remark sufficiently indicating the fact to any reader of fair perspicacity; and, as no money was asked, nor received for or by its publication, and no efforts whatever made to disseminate or perpetuate the hoax, either by its publisher or author, I feel no hesitation in pronouncing it, and in believing that my readers will pronounce it, to have been a venial and harmless literary joke, instead of an ’unjustifiable fraud,’ ’forgery,’ and a ’great wrong,’ as it is solemnly declared to be by DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE!" (Gardette, The Whole Truth 23-24).

The aftermath of the debate included a mention of the "Fire-Fiend" affair by Henry Clapp in "Curiosities of Criticism" which appeared in the Saturday Press on January 20, 1866. Gardette’s book of poetry, The Fire-Fiend and Other Poems also appeared that year. Gardette was later attached to the U.S. delegation in Paris for five years and continued writing. One of his short stories, "The Burleigh Legacy: A Tale of an Amateur ’Detective’" (Beadle’s Monthly, 1866) bears "features we would call echoes of a Sherlockian story, had it been published after 1887" (D. Richards 8).

Gardette also wrote, perhaps at Henry Clapp’s request, a number of parodies of Walt Whitman for the Saturday Press under the name "Saerasmid," an anagram of his middle name. These poems were published in 1860 and appear to be part of Clapp’s larger effort to keep the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass in the spotlight on Whitman’s behalf (Clark 260-262).

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References & Biographical Resources

Quelqu'un [Winter, William]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New-York Saturday Press. 22 Sep. 1860: 3. [more about this work]

Gardette is mentioned in Personne's Feuilleton from the Leader (3). [pages: 3]

A. B. "Curiosities of Criticism." New York Saturday Press. 20 Jan. 1866: 40. [more about this work]

Clapp discusses Mackenzie's affirmation in the Philadelphia Press that the poems published in "The Fire Fiend and other Poems, by Charles D. Gardette" appeared to be written by Poe. Clapp also notes Mackenzie's subsequent denials of Poe's authorship of the poems.

Clapp, Henry Jr. Letter to Walt Whitman. 1860. [more about this work]

Clapp encourages Whitman to send a copy of the 1860 Leaves of Grass to Gardette for his consideration, even supplying him with Gardette's street address in Philadelphia.

Clark, George Pierce. "'Saerasmid,' an Early Promoter of Walt Whitman." American Literature. 27.2 (1955): 259-262. [more about this work]

Provides a very brief biography of Gardette, a history of his parodies of both Whitman and Poe, and evidence to identify him as "Saerasmid," the author of Whitman parodies in the Saturday Press. [pages: 259-262]

Figaro [Clapp, Henry Jr.]. "Dramatic Feuilleton." New York Saturday Press. 6 Jan. 1866: 8-9. [more about this work]

Figaro notes that Gardette has returned from Philadelphia and that he was asked to explain the joke in the Saturday Press about how "Figaro 'died of rum and recklessness.'" Figaro gives an account of Gardette's explanation (8). [pages: 8]

Gardette, Charles Desmarais and Robert Shelton Mackenzie. The Whole Truth in the Question of "The Fire Fiend": Between Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie and C.D. Gardette; Briefly stated by the Latter. Philadelphia: Sherman & Co., 1864. [more about this work]

Gardette claims that Mackenzie never gave him the privildege of "justifying" his work with "The Fire Fiend." The correspondence is Gardette's attempt to address Mackenzie's claims about his work.

"General gossip of authors and writers." Current Literature. 1888: 476-480. [more about this work]

Mentioned as one of the Bohemians at Pfaff's "gossiped" about by Rufus B. Wilson in a "reminiscent letter to the Galveston News." [pages: 479]

Lalor, Eugene T. The Literary Bohemians of New York City in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Ph.D. Dissertation, St. John's University, 1977. 364 p. [more about this work]

Described as a "tangential figure," the "writer of 'The Fire Fiend' hoax on Poe." [pages: 3,16]

Leland, Charles Godfrey. Memoirs. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1893. [more about this work]

[pages: 234]

"Literary Matters." New-York Saturday Press. 3 Mar. 1866: 4. [more about this work]

[pages: 4]

Rawson, A. L. "A Bygone Bohemia." Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly. 1896. 96-107. [more about this work]

Identified by Rawson as an occasional visitor. [pages: 103]

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Knopf, 1995. 671 p. [more about this work]

Described by Reynolds as a "Poesque tale writer" (377). [pages: 377]

Richards, Dana. "The Amateur Detective in 1866." Baker Street Journal: An Irregular Quarterly of Sherlockiana. 47.4 (1997): 7-11. [more about this work]

[pages: 8]

Seitz, Don Carlos. Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne): A Biography and Bibliography. NY: Harper & Brothers, 1919. [more about this work]

[pages: 97]

Stansell, Christine. "Whitman at Pfaff's: Commercial Culture, Literary Life and New York Bohemia at Mid-Century." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 10.3 (1993): 107-126. [more about this work]

As one of the "Pfaffian regulars" who did "serious writing along with journalism", Gardette wrote short stories (114). Stansell writes that of the "gossip about other writers" that Whitman was exposed to at Pfaff's, he "scribbled down in his notebook the gist of a story he had heard from Charles Gardette about the rise and fall of a popular feuilletoniste, George Lippard; 'was handsome Byronic, -- commenced at 18 -- wrote sensation novels -- drank-drank-drank -- died mysteriously either of suicide or mania a potu at 25- or 6 -- a perfect wreck -- was ragged, drunk, beggarly --'" (117). [pages: 114,117]

"The Young Men of the New York Press." The Independent. 7 Jun. 1866: 4. [more about this work]

“It is a striking fact that the number of young men prominently connected with the New York press as writers is greater now than at any former period… the chief editorial work in these journals is done by men between the years of twenty-five and forty” (4).

“Charles D. Gardette, John Alden, Barry Gray, C.D. Shanley, and Dr. Stiles of the Historical Magazine, might all be much older and still young” (4).
[pages: 4]

Winter, William. Old Friends; Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1909. 407 p. [more about this work]

When reminiscing about the Bohemians, Winter remembers Gardette as "That singular being...who wrote 'The Fire Fiend,' and, for a time, rejoiced in luring the public into a belief that it was a posthumous poem by Edgar Poe, was conpicuous there [Pfaff's], for daintiness of person, elegance of attire, and blithe animal spirits" (65).

He is listed by Winter as one of the Bohemians who frequented Pfaff's Cave (88).

Of the poets associated with the Bohemian period, Winter states that Gardette's name is one among a list of "names that shine, with more or less lustre, in the scroll of American poets, and recurrence to their period affords opportunity for correction of errors concerning it, which have been conspicuously made" (292). [pages: 65,88,292]