In a review of her Zinzendorff, and Other Poems (1835) in the January 1836 Southern Literary Messenger, Edgar Allan Poe criticized Lydia H. Sigourney's writing as derivative and said that she benefited from the company of other writers who had "manufactured for themselves a celebrity." Six years later, however, he solicited her work for Graham's Magazine, and he retracted his earlier criticism in the January 1842 issue of Graham's while reviewing her Pocahontas, and Other Poems (1841): "We have accused her of imitation of Mrs. Hemans--but this imitation is no longer apparent." The most popular American poet of her time, Sigourney was memorialized by John Greenleaf Whittier and parodied by Mark Twain. She was rarely openly criticized, and most criticisms that did appear were qualified with excuses for her. Her sentimental works disappeared from the canon of American literature shortly after her death, and, despite the efforts of a few critics--primarily feminist...