Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815 – 1857) was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic from Vermont.  This black hearted villain, despite publishing numerous successful anthologies of poetry and prose and influencing the literary taste of the public for years, is best known as Edgar Allan Poe’s literary executor and the man libeled Poe and created the myth that Poe was a drug and alcohol addled madman with his notorious obituary and subsequent biography.