I didn't bust my nuff (chuckles),

I didn't bust my nut enough in England.

Oh, I still didn't do enough.

- Stephenson was like, "Well, you know,

"there is other stuff you can do."

So Dahl was hired into a dark propaganda section,

referred to as the BSC,

which stands for the British Security Council.

(dramatic instrumental music)

Hello, today we're gonna talk about Edgar Allen Poe

and his rivalry with Rufus Griswold,

one of America's first pieces of (beep).

(haunting instrumental music)

Okay, this is the 1800s and no one has any money.

Like people are like sweeping the streets

and maybe you'd find like a crust of bacon and you'd eat it.

Edgar Allen Poe, he's one of the great American poets,

completely disrespected by everyone

he ever came in contact with.

He was always broke,

and he came into contact with a fellow by the name

of Rufus Griswold.

So Griswold says to Poe, "Hey, I'm making this book

"called 'The Poets and Poetry of America'

"so give me some of your poems and if I like 'em,

"I'll put 'em in."

He knows if he puts him in the book,

then Edgar Allen Poe will be likely to write a nice review.

So Poe's like, "Okay, I'll give you some of my poems.

"So here's my poems."

So books get booket.

The book gets published.

Poe's, three of Poe's poems are printed.

Griswold has printed 50 poems by one of his friends.

50!

Poe's sitting there with the book in front of him,

flipping through the book, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.

"What the (beep)?

"Are you (beep) serious?

"This (beep) sucker hack loser ass (beep)

"has put me in the very back of this book.

"I have been hornswoggled by (beep)."

Griswold comes to him.

He's like, "Edgar, what do you say that you write

"one of your wonderful reviews of my book

"and I'll give you $100 for it."

It's basically bribery and Poe's like "Sure, no problem.

"I'll take your money and write a review of this, this book.

"No problem.

"No (beep) problem, Rufus."

(laughing) So, so he, so he writes the review.

Now Griswold has been telling his friends, you know,

"Poe's gonna write this great review of my (beep)."

Then when he reads the review that he paid for, like,

"No one should read this.

"None of these poets are gonna be remembered except for me.

"It's a waste of time to even look at this thing.

"All this is crap, Edgar Allan Poe."

He's like, "Really?

"I gave you money to write a (beep) review of a book

"of poetry that I put you in, you ass (beep).

"Game on."

So Poe starts hearing that Griswold is now like

is talking (beep) about him.

So he goes on a tour of America.

I mean like, "Hey, what's up guys?

"You guys know about Rufus Griswold, right?

"The guy who wrote this (beep) book of poetry

"where he only put three of my poems in.

"You know about this guy, he's like a hack,

"just like a stereotypical, basic bull (beep) ass (beep).

"He has no talent at all.

"And if you give Griswold a hand job

"he'll put 20 poems in his (beep) book.

"He is a vile holographic piece of (beep).

"Holograms don't even exist yet,

"and I'm calling him a (beep) hologram."

Very important note, the anthology,

despite Poe talking all this (beep) is massively successful.

Poe goes to his job at this magazine

and seated at his desk is Rufus (beep) Griswold.

He's like, "Oh, I'm sorry.

"While you were gone, I got your job.

"And I'm getting paid more than you got paid.

"So I win.

"Goodnight."

So Poe's like, "What the (beep)?"

He's like, "What the (beep)?"

His worst enemy has taken his job and he's (beep).

He's (beep).

He goes on drinking binges.

He's a drunk, he's a drunk.

He's a lunatic.

He's like wandering the streets.

(sweeping instrumental music)

Right around that time, his wife dies

and Poe goes insane and starts taking laudanum,

which is this like downer

but it makes you high as a (beep) kite.

And that's it, man.

Poe continues to spiral down into an (beep) oblivion.

They find him laying in a gutter in Baltimore.

They take him to a hospital where he dies.

So Poe's dead.

Griswold wanted Poe to seem like a monster

so (beep) Griswold proceeds to write

the scathing biographies of Edgar Allan Poe.

"He was a drunk.

"He was always in debt.

"He sucked.

"He was awful.

"Forget about him, forget about him!"

(bird cawing)

But everyone in America read this and they're like,

"Wait, what?

"Drunk crazy guy who wrote about ravens?

"Where can I get his book?

"That sounds awesome."

It ended up making Edgar Allan Poe 50,000 times more famous,

and he's considered to be one of the great writers

of our time.

Later in his life, Griswold comes down with tuberculosis

and dies alone with a picture of Edgar Allan Poe

on the wall watching him like,

"Look at you, man.

"where are you now?

"Look at Griswold, all you people out there.

"I don't care what you do.

"What'd you do?

"Guess what?

"No one's gonna remember it.

"You're, you're silly attempt to disguise a (beep)

"history show in like people getting drunk, it's failure.

"No one cares.

"No one's buying it, man.

"Forget it, we're all getting sucked into the void."

Ugh. (thuds)

(Derek laughing)

(dramatic instrumental music)

- Uh, my name is Lucius Dillon.

Today, we're gonna talk about Roald Dahl (spits),

his life as a British spy.

World War II, Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot for the RAF,

the Royal Air Force, and he loved fighting them Nazis.

And he's like, "Ah, this is great."

And so he had to go and fly to a base in the desert.

He ran out of gas, hit the ground at 75 miles an hour,

cracked his skull.

He had to drag himself out of the plane

before the gas tanks exploded.

(dramatic instrumental music)

So he pretty much was like invalided out

of the Royal Air Force.

But then a famous author, C.S. Forester,

went to interview him about his crash.

Dahl was like, "Okay, you know what?

"My mind's a little spotty.

"Let me just, let me just write down some notes for you."

Forester's like, "Okay, send them to me later."

So Dahl sat down to kinda write it

and his mind was kinda muddled

because he went through a crash,

but he wrote like a really good story.

Send it to Forester and Forester wrote back, he's like,

"Okay look, you're supposed to give me notes,

"not write a full (beep) story.

"This, this is great.

"This is amazing.

"I, I'm not changing a word.

"I'm sending this straight to the Saturday Evening Post."

So that got sent and was actually really popular

and he realized like, "Okay, I can tear a pretty good yard,

"or I don't know if that's the right term, but (laughs)

"I can, I can write a pretty good story."

(spits) See, you gotta tickle it.

You gotta know... (laughs).

- Just keep going.

- Uh, yeah, he was the talk of the town.

And so he was invited to a lot of these parties.

He met up with a really cool guy called Bill Stephenson,

and Bill Stephenson's just like,

"Hey, what's going on with you?"

And Dahl is just like, "I wanna help out England."

"I didn't bust my nuff (chuckles),

"I didn't bust my nut enough in England.

"Oh, I still didn't do enough."

Stephenson was like,

"Well, you know, there is other stuff you can do."

So Dahl was hired into a dark propaganda section

referred to as the BSC,

which stands for the British Security Council.

A lot of other people were hired.

Noel Coward, who was a famous playwright and actor,

and also Ian Fleming, who some people might know

as James mother (beep) Bond.

Stephenson was like,

"Let's put you into some good political parties

"and meet everyone you (beep) can

"and report everything back to us."

He was like, "Okay."

So here's Roald (beep) Dahl, tall, handsome mother (beep),

long-ass face, eloquent-ass tongue,

but every time when he was at the party,

like he'd be eavesdropping on newspaper people, politicians,

and then secretly just like scribbling, you know,

little things on like napkins and reporting it to England.

He would also get into finding information

through pillow talk.

He had a list of ladies that he would go through,

like Cissy Patterson had her claws

into the Washington Herald Times, and she's like,

"You wanna see the boudoir?"

And he's like, "Yes, please."

So he (beep) the (beep) out of her for a while

and got whatever information that he could.

Then it went to Evalyn McLean.

She knew every politician in the world

so they (beep) a lot.

So he met Clare Booth Luce.

She was a Congresswoman and they (beep). (laughs)

And he got so much information through so much of his dick,

but after a while, and this is an exact quote,

like he called Ambassador Halifax and he's like,

"Look, I am (beep) out, okay?

"This goddamn woman has (beep) me from one end of the room

"to the other.

"I'm done.

"I can't do it.

"I am squirting dust."

And Ambassador's like,

"Just close your eyes and think of England."

And Dahl's like, "Great, okay, I guess I will."

- Get your chin-

- I'm just, no it's-

- Your chin off my neck.

- No, that wasn't...

My chin wasn't on you at all.

- I feel like we're laying on two muppets.

- (laughs) Yes. (coughs)

- Oh Jesus, is this your death scene?

If you die on the show, we're (beep).

(dramatic instrumental music)

- Okay, so FDR was in his third term.

Britain was like, "Okay, he's getting old.

"We are worried that he's gonna die

"because he's our biggest supporter right now.

"You need to let us know everything that's wrong with him."

And he's like, "Yeah, I'll be right over.

"Uh, and now, I'm here right now."

And so luckily Eleanor Roosevelt was like,

"Hey, I'm a big fan of yours so meet my husband."

And he's like, "Oh yeah, nice to meet you, FDR."

"Nice to meet you too, Roald Dahl."