To the River

November 11, 2026

Richmond is nicknamed the River City and the James River has always been an important part of daily life, especially in the summer. On any given weekend with a hot afternoon, college students, families, first dates and fishermen can be found lulling about the banks and in the waters of the James. From the time the city was known as Powhatan (birthplace of the native chief who would adopt his villages name and then in turn bestow it to the indigenous confederacy he built) the James has been a source of food, transportation and recreation. By the time of Poe’s childhood in the 1820s dozens of small fishing boats would be out on the water near the falls with cargo ships down at Rocketts Landing waiting for tobacco, coal and other goods to be taken down the river and shipped across the country. The industrialization that would cover the rivers banks (and pollute it for most of the 20^th century) was only just beginning to form.

View of Rocketts Landing ca April 1865

Poe was an athletic child, known among his friends for pushing himself in boyhood contests. On a wager, in June of 1824 at 15 years old Poe swam up the James from Mayo Island about 5 miles against the tide to Warwick, near where the modern Deep Water Terminal for the Port of Richmond is. It was a feat Poe was very proud of for the rest of his life. A childhood friend corroborated being in the safety boat next to Poe as he was the distance over about five hours, which is important as many did not believe Poe about his teenage river run. Poe was known to exaggerate so it is key to note when he is backed up by other sources. Or most especially to make note of finding the thing Poe claims he did.

A Facebook post from The Poe Museum containing a contemporary newspaper clipping about Poe's swim

Poe’s very first collection of poetry, which To the River was first self-published in 1827, was a small 40 page collection called Tamerlane and Other Poems. Poe was on the outs with his foster father, John Allan, but had not yet fully cut ties, so Tamerlane was first published as written “By A Bostonian” probably as a way to satisfy his ambition of seeing his work in print while not torpedoing the possibility of reconciling with Allan (and most importantly getting access to that sweet sweet cash again). Being self-published only about 50 copies of the first edition of Tamerlane are believed to have been printed. Poe started his habit of tweaking his poetry by publishing a longer, revised version of the collection in 1829. The original was at first believed to not exist, another of Mr. Poe’s self-aggrandizements since Poe would have only been 18 at the time (this belief was mainly thanks to his frienemy Rufus Griswold calling Poe a liar).

The greater part of the Poems which compose this little volume were written in the year 1821-2, when the author had not completed his fourteenth year. They were of course not intended for publication; why they are now published concerns no one but himself. Of the smaller pieces very little need be said: they perhaps savour too much of egotism; but they were written by one too young to have any knowledge of the world but from his own breast.

Excerpt of the authors preface from the 1829 publication of Tamerlane

A copy of the original version was not found until 1876 in London (27 years after Poe was dead) and a second copy was only discovered in 1890 in Boston. As of this writing only 12 copies have been found and verified. It is considered the mountaintop of American literature collectability with a copy selling at auction for $662,500 in 2009.

So is the hullabaloo around a moody teenagers self-published poems worth it? Are they any good? To the River I quite enjoy myself. While clearly inspired by his childhood on the James, Poe never names the river. The poem consists of two stanzas, the first being about how beautiful the River is, being the only thing that can compare to the narrators love for “Old Alberto’s daughter”. But things switch in the second stanza, because when Alberto’s Daughter looks into the river, the lover/narrator becomes the river, a trembling mess that holds the image/love of Alberto’s Daughter deep inside itself.

At first I didn’t quite like the switch of the metaphor of the river at first being the object of love and then the lover, but as I continued to reread the poem that pivot grew on me. The James around Richmond varies greatly in its temperament, from wide and calm around Rocketts Landing to class 5 rapids at the Falls near downtown. Knowing this, the switching of the metaphors makes sense.

And expressing the experience of thinking of a romantic love while looking at nature is as old as poetry, but how Poe uses nature to describe receiving the attention of a romantic love? The way Poe does it, it feels novel, if still like he’s absolutely an 18 yr old writing about a crush. The flow of the language is certainly above average for most modern teenagers, with the poem containing the alternating A-B-A-B rhyming couplets his poetry is known for. I don’t think Poe has to apologize for this poem in particular, even if it does smack of the lack of knowledge of the world he talks about in his preface.