Within the contemporary American literary scene Griswold became known as erratic, dogmatic, pretentious, and vindictive. Historian Perry Miller wrote "Griswold was about as devious as they came in this era of deviousness; did not ample documentation prove that he actually existed, we might suppose him ... one of the less plausible inventions of Charles Dickens". Later anthologies such as "Prose Writers of America" and "Female Poets of America" helped him become known as a literary dictator, whose approval writers sought even while they feared his growing power. Even as they tried to impress him, however, several authors voiced their opinion on Griswold's character. Ann S. Stephens called him two-faced and "constitutionally incapable of speaking the truth". Even his friends knew him as a consummate liar and had a saying: "Is that a Griswold or a fact?" Another friend once called him "one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met". Author Cornelius Mathews wrote in 1847 that Griswold fished for writers to exploit, warning "the poor little innocent fishes" to avoid his "Griswold Hook". A review of one of Griswold's anthologies, published anonymously in the Philadelphia "Saturday Museum" on January 28, 1843, but believed to have been written by Poe, asked: "What will be [Griswold's] fate? Forgotten, save only by those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or if he is spoken of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused his trust."