The Antediluvians, or the World Destroyed; a narrative poem, in ten books. By James McHenry, M.D. First American edition, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, & Co., 1840. —“The only tolerable American epic,” says Edgar Allan Poe.
Dr. James McHenry, of Philadelphia, is well known to the literary world as the writer of numerous articles in our Reviews and lighter journals, but more especially as the author of “The Antediluvians,” an epic poem which has been the victim of a most shameful cabal in this country, and the subject of a very disgraceful pasquinade on the part of Professor Wilson Whatever may be the demerits, in some regard, of this poem, there can be no question of the utter want of fairness and even of common decency which distinguished the Philippic in question. The writer of a just review of the “Antediluvians”—the only tolerable American epic—would render an important service to the literature of his country. —“An Appendix of Autographs,” in Graham’s Magazine, January, 1842.