Woman of the Century/Sarah Helen Whitman

WHITMAN, Mrs. Sarah Helen, poet, born in Providence, R. I., in 1803, and died there 27th June, 1878. She was the daughter of Nicholas Power. She became the wife of John W. Whitman, a lawyer, of Boston, Mass., in 1828. SARAH HELEN WHITMAN. She lived in Boston until her husband died, in 1833, when she returned to Providence. There she devoted herself to literature. In 1848 she became conditionally engaged to Edgar A. Poe, but she broke the engagement. They remained friends. She contributed essays, critical sketches and poems to magazines for many years. In 1853 she published a collection of her works, entitled "Hours of Life, and Other Poems." In 1860 she published a volume entitled "Edgar A. Poe and His Critics," in which she defended him from harsh aspersions. She was the joint author, with her sister, Miss Anna Marsh Power, of "Fairy Ballads." "The Golden Ball." "The Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella." After her death a complete collection of her poems was published.