1803–78, American poet, b. Providence, R.I. In 1828 she married a Boston lawyer, John W. Whitman; after his death (1833) she returned to Providence and devoted herself to writing. In 1848 she was engaged for a time to Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote the second of his two poems entitled "To Helen" about her. She wrote several poems about Poe and defended him in Edgar Poe and His Critics (1860). Her collected poems, Hours of Life, appeared in 1853 (enl. ed. 1879).

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