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Who really said it

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity

Written by Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849 · American writer
Verified Free to reuse

Poe wrote this in his January 4, 1848 letter to George W. Eveleth.

Last verified 9 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” — Edgar Allan Poe, letter to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Source
Letter to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848
Source date
1848

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

Read the attribution evidence

How we verified this

  • The Poe Society’s letter transcription contains the exact sentence. It concerns Poe’s distress during his wife’s recurring illness; it is correspondence, not dialogue from a horror story. The letter ↗
  • Wikiquote identifies the same letter and date. Wikiquote source pointer ↗
Public domain

The identified English source was published before 1931 and is public domain in the United States.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

Poe wrote the sentence while describing his distress during his wife’s recurring illness. The context is personal correspondence to George W. Eveleth, rather than a narrator speaking inside one of Poe’s fictional tales.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Mortality

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The lettereapoe.org

Primary correspondence transcription contains this exact sentence.
Wikiquote source pointeren.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote identifies the same letter and date.
Letter editionseapoe.org

The Poe Society explains its correspondence editions and editorial history.
Poe Society archiveeapoe.org

Specialist archive of Poe’s life and works.

The author

About Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

1809–1849 · American writer

Poe was an American poet, short-story writer and critic. The Edgar Allan Poe Society maintains edited transcriptions of his writings and correspondence, including the 1848 letter used here.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The documented evidence

Letter to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848 (1848).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity’?” Last verified 9 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-became-insane-with-long-intervals-of-horrible-sanity/

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