page_title: William Evans Burton
section_title: Publishing work
hierarchical_section_title: William Evans Burton / Life and work / Publishing work
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of William E. Burton
context_page_description: William Evans Burton, who often went by the nickname Billy, was an English actor, playwright, theater manager and publisher who relocated to the United States.
context_section_description: In 1837 in Philadelphia he established the Gentlemen's Magazine, of which Edgar Allan Poe was for some time the editor. His magazine was intended for a general audience, incorporating the standard fare of poetry and fiction, but had a focus on sporting life like hunting and sailing. For the September 1837 issue Burton wrote an early example of the detective story, 'The Secret Cell', detailing a London policeman's efforts to trace an abducted girl and arrest her kidnappers.  Burton likely served as a literary critic himself for the magazine. To remain competitive, the magazine included better paper, more illustrations, and higher-quality printing, making production costs high. Poe became an editor in 1839, though Burton disliked Poe's harsh style of criticism. Even so, Poe's responsibilities increased whenever Burton left town to perform at other venues. It was under Burton that Poe began what has since been termed the "Longfellow War", with Poe using his role as critic to anonymously accuse the popular poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism. Another critic, Willis Gaylord Clark, blamed Burton for allowing these literary attacks, telling Longfellow that Burton was: "a vagrant from England, who has left a wife and offspring behind him there, and plays the bigamist in this with another wife, and his whore besides; one who cannot write a paragraph in English to save his life".
  Poe was fired by Burton in June 1840. Burton and Poe had a tumultuous working relationship. Burton tried selling the magazine without telling Poe, and Poe made plans to launch his own competing Philadelphia-based magazine called The Penn without mentioning it to Burton.  Additionally, Burton may have written a particularly scathing negative review of Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and spread rumors of his drunkenness, which Poe denied. Poe told a friend that Burton was a "blackguard and a villain." Poe's friend Joseph E. Snodgrass thought Burton's rumor-mongering was enough for Poe to sue for slander but Poe noted his own name-calling was enough for a countersuit.
caption: William Evans Burton
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