9
Oct
2023
The Musical Life of Edgar Allan Poe’s Bankruptcy Lawyer
In writing our article The Purloined Debtor: Edgar Allan Poe’s Bankruptcy in Law and Letters, 34 Yale J. L & Hum. 433 (2023) about Edgar Allan Poe’s bankruptcy (which was just published), my coauthor Erin Sheley and I learned more about a fairly obscure but nonetheless fascinating figure, John Turner Sargent Sullivan. JTSS served as Poe’s attorney and as assignee for Poe’s creditors (more on that later). However, while representing Poe is probably the most interesting fact about his life nowadays, in his time JTSS was a celebrated composer of popular songs and a bon vivant who was well-known in the Philadelphia social scene of the 1840s. When writing the paper I knew I wanted to say more about JTSS than I could in a paper which ultimately wasn’t about him, and this blog post is a perfect opportunity to do just that. For more on Poe’s bankruptcy – read the paper! This post is (mostly) about Sullivan.