a brief biography of edgar allan poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was a writer and critic famous for his dark, mysterious poems and stories, including “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Who Was Edgar Allan Poe?

Quick facts, army and west point, writing career as a critic and poet, poems: “the raven” and “annabel lee”, short stories, legacy and museum.

FULL NAME: Edgar Allan Poe BORN: January 19, 1809 DIED: October 7, 1849 BIRTHPLACE: Boston, Massachusetts SPOUSE: Virginia Clemm Poe (1836-1847) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

Edgar Allan Poe was born Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809, in Boston. Edgar never really knew his biological parents: Elizabeth Arnold Poe, a British actor, and David Poe Jr., an actor who was born in Baltimore. His father left the family early in Edgar’s life, and his mother died from tuberculosis when he was only 2.

Separated from his brother, William, and sister, Rosalie, Poe went to live with his foster parents, John and Frances Allan, in Richmond, Virginia. John was a successful tobacco merchant there. Edgar and Frances seemed to form a bond, but he had a more difficult relationship with John.

By age 13, Poe was a prolific poet, but his literary talents were discouraged by his headmaster and by John, who preferred that young Edgar follow him in the family business. Preferring poetry over profits, Poe reportedly wrote poems on the back of some of Allan’s business papers.

Money was also an issue between Poe and John. Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, where he excelled in his classes. However, he didn’t receive enough money from John to cover all of his costs. Poe turned to gambling to cover the difference but ended up in debt.

He returned home only to face another personal setback—his neighbor and fiancée Sarah Elmira Royster had become engaged to someone else. Heartbroken and frustrated, Poe moved to Boston.

In 1827, around the time he published his first book, Poe joined the U.S. Army. Two years later, he learned that his mother, Frances, was dying of tuberculosis, but by the time he returned to Richmond, she had already died.

While in Virginia, Poe and his father briefly made peace with each other, and John helped Poe get an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Poe excelled at his studies at West Point, but he was kicked out after a year for his poor handling of his duties.

During his time at West Point, Poe had fought with John, who had remarried without telling him. Some have speculated that Poe intentionally sought to be expelled to spite his father, who eventually cut ties with Poe.

After leaving West Point, Poe published his third book and focused on writing full-time. He traveled around in search of opportunity, living in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond. In 1834, John Allan died, leaving Poe out of his will, but providing for an illegitimate child Allan had never met.

Poe, who continued to struggle living in poverty, got a break when one of his short stories won a contest in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter . He began to publish more short stories and, in 1835, landed an editorial position with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe developed a reputation as a cut-throat critic, writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries. His scathing critiques earned him the nickname the “Tomahawk Man.”

His tenure at the magazine proved short, however. Poe’s aggressive reviewing style and sometimes combative personality strained his relationship with the publication, and he left the magazine in 1837. His problems with alcohol also played a role in his departure, according to some reports.

Poe went on to brief stints at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine , Graham’s Magazine , as well as The Broadway Journal , and he also sold his work to Alexander’s Weekly Messenger , among other journals.

In 1844, Poe moved to New York City. There, he published a news story in The New York Sun about a balloon trip across the Atlantic Ocean that he later revealed to be a hoax. His stunt grabbed attention, but it was his publication of “The Raven,” in 1845, that made Poe a literary sensation.

That same year, Poe found himself under attack for his stinging criticisms of fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . Poe claimed that Longfellow, a widely popular literary figure, was a plagiarist, which resulted in a backlash against Poe.

Despite his success and popularity as a writer, Poe continued to struggle financially, and he advocated for higher wages for writers and an international copyright law.

Poe self-published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems , in 1827. His second poetry collection, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems , was published in 1829.

As a critic at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond from 1835 to 1837, Poe published some of his own works in the magazine, including two parts of his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym . Later on came poems such as “Ulalume” and “The Bells.”

“The Raven”

Poe’s poem “The Raven,” published in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror , is considered among the best-known poems in American literature and one of the best of Poe’s career. An unknown narrator laments the demise of his great love Lenore and is visited by a raven, who insistently repeats one word: “Nevermore.” In the work, which consists of 18 six-line stanzas, Poe explored some of his common themes: death and loss.

“Annabel Lee”

This lyric poem again explores Poe’s themes of death and loss and might have been written in memory of his beloved wife, Virginia, who died two years prior its publication. The poem was published on October 9, 1849, two days after Poe’s death, in the New York Tribune .

In late 1830s, Poe published Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque , a collection of short stories. It contained several of his most spine-tingling tales, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia,” and “William Wilson.”

In 1841, Poe launched the new genre of detective fiction with “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” His literary innovations earned him the nickname “Father of the Detective Story.” A writer on the rise, he won a literary prize in 1843 for “The Gold Bug,” a suspenseful tale of secret codes and hunting treasure.

“The Black Cat”

Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” was published in 1843 in The Saturday Evening Post . In it, the narrator, a one-time animal lover, becomes an alcoholic who begins abusing his wife and black cat. By the macabre story’s end, the narrator observes his own descent into madness as he kills his wife, a crime his black cat reports to the police. The story was later included in the 1845 short story collection, Tales by Edgar Allan Poe .

Later in his career, Poe continued to work in different forms, examining his own methodology and writing in general in several essays, including “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle,” and “The Rationale of Verse.” He also produced the thrilling tale, “The Cask of Amontillado.”

From 1831 to 1835, Poe lived in Baltimore, where his father was born, with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. He began to devote his attention to Virginia; his cousin became his literary inspiration as well as his love interest. The couple married in 1836 when she was only 13 years old and he was 27.

In 1847, at the age of 24—the same age when Poe’s mother and brother also died—Virginia passed away from tuberculosis. Poe was overcome by grief following her death, and although he continued to work, he suffered from poor health and struggled financially until his death in 1849.

Poe died on October 7, 1849, in Baltimore at age 40.

His final days remain somewhat of a mystery. Poe left Richmond on ten days earlier, on September 27, and was supposedly on his way to Philadelphia. On October 3, he was found in Baltimore in great distress. Poe was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he died four days later. His last words were “Lord, help my poor soul.”

At the time, it was said that Poe died of “congestion of the brain.” But his actual cause of death has been the subject of endless speculation. Some experts believe that alcoholism led to his demise while others offer up alternative theories. Rabies, epilepsy, and carbon monoxide poisoning are just some of the conditions thought to have led to the great writer’s death.

Shortly after his passing, Poe’s reputation was badly damaged by his literary adversary Rufus Griswold. Griswold, who had been sharply criticized by Poe, took his revenge in his obituary of Poe, portraying the gifted yet troubled writer as a mentally deranged drunkard and womanizer. He also penned the first biography of Poe, which helped cement some of these misconceptions in the public’s minds.

Although Poe never had financial success in his lifetime, he has become one of America’s most enduring writers. His works are as compelling today as they were more than a century ago. An innovative and imaginative thinker, Poe crafted stories and poems that still shock, surprise, and move modern readers. His dark work influenced writers including Charles Baudelaire , Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Stephane Mallarme.

The Baltimore home where Poe stayed from 1831 to 1835 with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Poe’s cousin and future wife Virginia, is now a museum. The Edgar Allan Poe House offers a self-guided tour featuring exhibits on Poe’s foster parents, his life and death in Baltimore, and the poems and short stories he wrote while living there, as well as memorabilia including his chair and desk.

• The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
• Lord, help my poor soul.
• Sound loves to revel near a summer night.
• But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
• They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
• The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
• With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not—they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
• And now—have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?—now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart.
• All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
• I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active—not more happy—nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
• [I]f you wish to forget anything upon the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
• Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. Poe’s father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a prosperous tobacco exporter, sent Poe to the best boarding schools and, later, to the University of Virginia, where Poe excelled academically. After less than one year of school, however, he was forced to leave the university when Allan refused to pay Poe’s gambling debts.

Poe returned briefly to Richmond, but his relationship with Allan deteriorated. In 1827, Poe moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. His first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems  (George Redway), was published that year. In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems  (Hatch & Dunning). Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia, in Baltimore.

Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia. In 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old at the time. Over the next ten years, Poe would edit a number of literary journals including the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. It was during these years that he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best-known stories and poems, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Raven.” After Virginia’s death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe’s lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. For unknown reasons, he stopped in Baltimore. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi-consciousness. Poe died four days later of “acute congestion of the brain.” Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies.

Poe’s work as an editor, poet, and critic had a profound impact on American and international literature. His stories mark him as one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction. Many anthologies credit him as the “architect” of the modern short story. He was also one of the first critics to focus primarily on the effect of style and structure in a literary work; as such, he has been seen as a forerunner to the “art for art’s sake” movement. French Symbolists such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Arthur Rimbaud claimed him as a literary precursor. Charles  Baudelaire spent nearly fourteen years translating Poe into French. Today, Poe is remembered as one of the first American writers to become a major figure in world literature.

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Biography of Edgar Allan Poe

by Robert Giordano , 27 June 2005 This is a short biography. Unlike many biographies that just seem to go on and on, I've tried to compose one short enough to read in a single sitting.

Poe's Childhood

Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar was 2 years old. She had separated from her husband and had taken her three kids with her. Henry went to live with his grandparents while Edgar was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan and Rosalie was taken in by another family. John Allan was a successful merchant, so Edgar grew up in good surroundings and went to good schools. When Poe was 6, he went to school in England for 5 years. He learned Latin and French, as well as math and history. He later returned to school in America and continued his studies. Edgar Allan went to the University of Virginia in 1826. He was 17. Even though John Allan had plenty of money, he only gave Edgar about a third of what he needed. Although Edgar had done well in Latin and French, he started to drink heavily and quickly became in debt. He had to quit school less than a year later.

Poe in the Army

Edgar Allan had no money, no job skills, and had been shunned by John Allan. Edgar went to Boston and joined the U.S. Army in 1827. He was 18. He did reasonably well in the Army and attained the rank of sergeant major. In 1829, Mrs. Allan died and John Allan tried to be friendly towards Edgar and signed Edgar's application to West Point. While waiting to enter West Point, Edgar lived with his grandmother and his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. Also living there was his brother, Henry, and young cousin, Virginia. In 1830, Edgar Allan entered West Point as a cadet. He didn't stay long because John Allan refused to send him any money. It is thought that Edgar purposely broke the rules and ignored his duties so he would be dismissed.

A Struggling Writer

In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe went to New York City where he had some of his poetry published. He submitted stories to a number of magazines and they were all rejected. Poe had no friends, no job, and was in financial trouble. He sent a letter to John Allan begging for help but none came. John Allan died in 1834 and did not mention Edgar in his will. In 1835, Edgar finally got a job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, " The Manuscript Found in a Bottle ". Edgar missed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia and brought them to Richmond to live with him. In 1836, Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. He was 27 and she was 13. Many sources say Virginia was 14, but this is incorrect. Virginia Clemm was born on August 22, 1822. They were married before her 14th birthday, in May of 1836. In case you didn't figure it out already, Virginia was Virgo. As the editor for the Southern Literary Messenger , Poe successfully managed the paper and increased its circulation from 500 to 3500 copies. Despite this, Poe left the paper in early 1836, complaining of the poor salary. In 1837, Edgar went to New York. He wrote "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" but he could not find any financial success. He moved to Philadelphia in 1838 where he wrote " Ligeia " and " The Haunted Palace ". His first volume of short stories, "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" was published in 1839. Poe received the copyright and 20 copies of the book, but no money. Sometime in 1840, Edgar Poe joined George R. Graham as an editor for Graham's Magazine . During the two years that Poe worked for Graham's, he published his first detective story, " The Murders in the Rue Morgue " and challenged readers to send in cryptograms, which he always solved. During the time Poe was editor, the circulation of the magazine rose from 5000 to 35,000 copies. Poe left Graham's in 1842 because he wanted to start his own magazine. Poe found himself without a regular job once again. He tried to start a magazine called The Stylus and failed. In 1843, he published some booklets containing a few of his short stories but they didn't sell well enough. He won a hundred dollars for his story, " The Gold Bug " and sold a few other stories to magazines but he barely had enough money to support his family. Often, Mrs. Clemm had to contribute financially. In 1844, Poe moved back to New York. Even though " The Gold Bug " had a circulation of around 300,000 copies, he could barely make a living. In 1845, Edgar Poe became an editor at The Broadway Journal . A year later, the Journal ran out of money and Poe was out of a job again. He and his family moved to a small cottage near what is now East 192nd Street. Virginia's health was fading away and Edgar was deeply distressed by it. Virginia died in 1847, 10 days after Edgar's birthday. After losing his wife, Poe collapsed from stress but gradually returned to health later that year.

In June of 1849, Poe left New York and went to Philadelphia, where he visited his friend John Sartain. Poe left Philadelphia in July and came to Richmond. He stayed at the Swan Tavern Hotel but joined "The Sons of Temperance" in an effort to stop drinking. He renewed a boyhood romance with Sarah Royster Shelton and planned to marry her in October. On September 27, Poe left Richmond for New York. He went to Philadelphia and stayed with a friend named James P. Moss. On September 30, he meant to go to New York but supposedly took the wrong train to Baltimore. On October 3, Poe was found at Gunner's Hall, a public house at 44 East Lombard Street, and was taken to the hospital. He lapsed in and out of consciousness but was never able to explain exactly what happened to him. Edgar Allan Poe died in the hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849. The mystery surrounding Poe's death has led to many myths and urban legends. The reality is that no one knows for sure what happened during the last few days of his life. Did Poe die from alcoholism? Was he mugged? Did he have rabies? A more detailed exploration of Poe's death can be found here .

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe by Richard Kopley LAST REVIEWED: 27 October 2016 LAST MODIFIED: 27 October 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0050

Born to a gifted actress and a less talented actor, Edgar Allan Poe (b. 1809–d. 1849) was orphaned in 1811 and taken in by the Allans of Richmond. Over time, tensions with John Allan grew, culminating with young Poe’s withdrawal from the University of Virginia in 1826 for incurring gambling debts and leading to his 1827 voyage to Boston. Poe published Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), then joined the army, eventually serving as a cadet at West Point, and, after deliberately causing his own court-martial, lived in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm, his cousin Virginia, and his brother, Henry (who died in 1831). Having published Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829) and Poems (1831), Poe shifted to fiction, and in 1835 he became an editor of Richmond’s Southern Literary Messenger . He published short stories, poems, and criticism, and he began to write his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym . Owing to his drinking, however, he lost his job in 1837 and ventured, with his new wife, Virginia, and his aunt (now his mother-in-law), to New York City—where he published Pym (1838)—and then to Philadelphia. In 1842 Virginia developed tuberculosis, his drinking intensified, and his poverty continued—indeed, he declared bankruptcy late that year. Yet, also during the Philadelphia period, he served as a magazine editor and wrote some of his greatest stories. His collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in 1840, and he soon thereafter created the modern detective story. In 1844 Poe and his family moved to New York City, where he achieved his greatest fame with “The Raven” in 1845. Also, he published The Raven and Other Poems (1845) and Tales (1845). But his drinking interfered with his editing the Broadway Journal , and he became involved in literary and legal conflicts. He and his family moved to Fordham, and Virginia died there in January 1847. In 1848 he published his cosmological prose-poem, Eureka , and in 1849 he returned to Richmond and became engaged to a wealthy widow, Elmira Royster Shelton, whom he had known in his youth. But he clearly was unhappy with the arrangement. Exactly what happened in Baltimore is not known, but on 3 October 1849 he was found inebriated and “rather the worse for wear”; he died in the Washington College Hospital four days later. Rufus Griswold, his literary executor, wrote an infamously hostile obituary, from which Poe’s reputation has never fully recovered. Certainly, Poe had his share of mortal frailties, but he also created immortal works of literature.

A wide variety of full-length studies of Poe are available; a selection is offered here. The introductory works are Fisher 2008 , Hammond 1983 , Hayes 2009 , and Symons 1978 . All are written with ease, brevity, and clarity. The most rewarding for the new student of Poe is surely Fisher 2008 . The ambitious full-length studies are Allen 1934 , Hoffman 1972 , Quinn 1998 , and Silverman 1991 . For the authority of its research, Silverman 1991 is clearly the book to read. But Hoffman 1972 , with its lively, idiosyncratic interpretation of Poe’s writings, is a delight. And Allen 1934 and Quinn 1998 furnish important and interesting foundational work, which helped shape decades of Poe studies.

Allen, Hervey. Israfel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe . New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1934.

If its prose is sometimes a bit overheated and the detail occasionally imagined, this volume, which updates and corrects the two-volume 1926 version, is still a worthwhile, spirited, and engaging presentation of Poe’s life.

Fisher, Benjamin F. The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511816888

Slender, clear, even-handed, accessible introduction to Poe. This is a very good place to start for its brief and cogent considerations of his life, his context, his work, and its reception.

Hammond, J. R. The Edgar Allan Poe Companion . London: Macmillan, 1983.

A convenient introduction, featuring a brief biography, an analysis of his works in various genres, and handy orienting tools—a Poe dictionary and a listing of people and places in Poe’s works.

Hayes, Kevin J. Edgar Allan Poe . London: Reaktion, 2009.

This brief, recent account of Poe’s life opens with his influence and his participation in literary contests and then takes a more traditional chronological trajectory. The attitude conveyed is a mixture of pity and admiration.

Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe . 1st ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.

Lively, personal, compelling study of Poe and his works, written con brio . The author offers a series of jaunty and provocative close readings with attention to a range of matters, from the hoaxical to the heroic.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography . Foreword by Shawn Rosenheim. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

The classic biography of Poe, written with ample research and evident affection. It includes a generous sampling of the letters and a deft blending of the life and the work. Sympathetic and appreciative, this volume continues to be a substantial contribution. Originally published in 1941.

Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance . New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Thoroughly researched standard biography of Poe, readable and reliable. It ably relates the life to the work but sometimes offers restrained admiration. The approach is psychoanalytic, with a thoughtful emphasis on Poe’s lifelong mourning.

Symons, Julian. The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe . New York: Harper & Row, 1978.

This work offers two separate overviews—one of Poe’s life and one of Poe’s works. The writing is straightforward, the interpretation tilted toward the psychoanalytic and without great regard for the academic.

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Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849: A Brief Biography

• Published: January 2001
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While the nation’s capital awaited the inauguration of James Madison as fourth president of the United States, Edgar e was born in Boston, on January 19, 1809, the second son of actor David Poe Jr. and actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. David Poe Sr., Edgar’s paternal grandfather, was of Irish American stock and had been a major in the American Revolution, serving as assistant deputy-quartermaster general for Balti more. Of English origin, Eliza came to America in 1796 with her mother, also an actress. Nine months after Edgar’s birth, hard drinking David Poe made his last theatrical performance, and he apparently abandoned his family soon after the birth of daughter Rosalie in December 18IO. Presumably he died of consumption (tuberculosis) a year later. Entrusting her elder son, Henry (b. 1807), to the care of relatives in Baltimore, Eliza Poe—a favorite with audiences—struggled valiantly to sustain her theatrical career in Charleston, Norfolk, and Richmond with two small children in tow. In failing health she made her final stage appearance in Richmond on October u, 18u; she died there of consumption on December 8. Orphaned by two itinerant stage per formers, Poe in later life sometimes tried to obscure his humble origins, although he faithfully preserved a locket containing a miniature painting of his mother.

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• Entertainment

A brief, credible biography of Edgar Allan Poe

Peter Ackroyd's brief biography of Edgar Allan Poe, "Poe: A Life Cut Short," is readable and credible

Share story

“Poe: A Life Cut Short”

by Peter Ackroyd

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $21.95

When done well, the brief life gives its audience an intellectually plausible take on a famous person that’s also fun to read.

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Still, the form’s chief advantage — its brevity — cannot help leaving key matters undeveloped. The busy but attentive reader will put it down plagued by the maddening itch of unanswered questions.

Peter Ackroyd, a historian, novelist and the author of the best Shakespeare biography I’ve found, is nothing if not readable and credible.

In this little book, he examines the life of Edgar Allan Poe to show why the author of “The Raven” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” still matters.

Born in Boston to a theatrical family, Poe was orphaned early and raised by adoptive parents in Richmond, Va. A feckless young man of striking features and personal charisma, he soon established the pattern of his life: Poe distinguished himself while sober, but sabotaged his prospects by sprees, drinking himself into shambolic insensibility.

Spending most of his adult life as a hack writer for one newspaper or magazine or another, Poe worked in Richmond, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore, where he died in 1849 at age 40. Yet he managed to write prodigiously, producing the short stories and poems for which he is chiefly remembered. He was also a prescient, if often vicious, literary critic.

Today, Poe remains a cultural touchstone, while most of his contemporaries and rivals are justly forgotten. As Ackroyd notes, he can be credited with inventing the modern horror story, the modern detective story, and, possibly, the modern sci-fi story.

Ackroyd gives us a rounded portrait, including items that may have eluded our English teachers. Poe was a Southern gentleman, for example, much devoted to the institution of slavery. His gothic sensibility — a fascination with sickly women, premature interment and a mingling of beauty, love and death — arose from the early losses of his mother and adoptive mother.

Still, Ackroyd gives only glancing attention to a number of intriguing matters. In an aside, he declares that heavy drinking and alcoholism are not the same thing. Given the role drink played in Poe’s life or death, that’s an idea worthy of explication.

Ackroyd mentions Poe’s debt to German romantic literature, but says little of what that entails. He suggests strongly that Poe may have written the horror stories with tongue in cheek, but offers scant support.

He notes in passing that Poe “disliked the culture of New England in general, and of Boston in particular; he despised in equal measure Transcendentalism and Abolition.”

Abolition is understandable, but transcendentalism? The mind scrabbles for more — Poe vs. Emerson, please! — but Emerson’s name does not even appear.

Of course, I am asking for a different book than the one Ackroyd has written. If he answered my querulous demands for additional information, “Poe: A Life Cut Short” would soon be something approaching a full biography.

Edgar Allan Poe: A Brief Biography

by Makenna Johnston, dramaturg  

Edgar Allan Poe was the second of three children born to traveling stage actors, David and Elizabeth (Eliza) Poe. When Edgar was almost two years old, his father abandoned the family leaving Eliza to fend for herself and their three small children. Eliza died of tuberculosis soon after. Edgar, who was not quite three years old, was charitably taken in by the wealthy, childless family of John and Frances Allan.

Under the Allans’ care, Edgar received a refined education and the undivided attention of his foster mother Frances. Though he was never officially adopted, Edgar was given the Allan name and was thenceforth known as “Edgar Allan Poe”.

When Edgar was about sixteen-years-old the Allans came into a sizable inheritance, which he assumed would be his eventually. This was not the case. Unbeknownst to Edgar and Frances, John Allan had multiple illegitimate children that required support. So, rather than give money to Edgar, the non-blood charity case, John guarded his money closely, saving it for his biological children. Eventually, Edgar discovered his foster father’s deceit which led to significant growth in mutual dislike each man had towards the other. Upset, Edgar was sent off to the University of Virginia where he racked up significant gambling debts. The miserly John refused to pay off the debts, so Edgar had to discontinue his college education.

After a particularly intense quarrel with his foster father, in which the two men cut all ties forever, Poe left the University of Virginia for good and headed north to Boston, where, in 1827 he published his first book. He lost money on the publication and decided to join the army. After two years in the army, a few months at the Military Academy at West Point, and the publication in 1829 of a second volume of poems, Poe moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt Maria Clemm and her nine-year-old daughter, Virginia.

In Baltimore, Poe published several short stories and won first prize in a literary contest. His success in the contest led to a job opportunity that brought him back to Richmond in 1835 as an assistant editor on the Southern Literary Messenger. A few years later, Poe married his now thirteen-year-old first cousin, Virginia. Edgar was twenty-seven at the time of their union.

Edgar’s relationship with his wife was described as cheerful, but childlike. To others, the pair seemed to be affectionate siblings rather than man and wife. Edgar and Virginia had no children.

The couple moved to New York and then Pennsylvania to seek better publishing opportunities. During this time in 1843, Edgar published Tell-Tale Heart in the Boston-based magazine “The Pioneer”. In 1847, after a long struggle with tuberculosis, Virginia Poe passed away. Distraught and alone, Edgar traveled between Richmond and Baltimore, giving lectures and readings, filling his time with distractions. Two years later in 1849, Edgar died of unknown causes. At the age of forty, Edgar Allan Poe had at last conquered the fever called “living”. Though he was sick the last two years of his life, his true cause of  death is a mystery.

Edgar Allan Poe was buried quickly and without a show in a Presbyterian cemetery. Very few were in attendance.  

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• Edgar Allan Poe’s Biography

Reading Comprehension – Edgar Allan Poe’s Biography

Develop your reading skills. Read the following text about Edgar Allan Poe’s Biography and do the comprehension task.

Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Mystery and Macabre

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Poe is famous for his tales of mystery and the macabre. He was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre.

Both Poe’s father and mother were professional actors who died before Poe was three years old. John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to a lack of money. He quarreled with Allan over funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was during this time that his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems titled “Tamerlane and Other Poems” (1827), credited only to “a Bostonian.” With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary reconciliation. Later, failing as an officer’s cadet at West Point and declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, Poe parted ways with John Allan.

A New Life and Marriage

After his early attempts at poetry, Poe turned his attention to prose. He spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move to several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin.

Success and Death

In January 1845, Poe published his poem “The Raven” to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal, “The Penn” (later renamed “The Stylus”), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.

Edgar Allan Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields. He is considered one of the originators of both horror and detective fiction and is credited as the “architect” of the modern short story. As a critic, he was one of the first writers to emphasize the effect of style and structure, thus foreshadowing the “art for art’s sake” movement. Poe is particularly respected in France, in part due to early translations by Charles Baudelaire, whose translations became definitive renditions of Poe’s work throughout Europe.

Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America presents an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.

Source: Wikipedia

Comprehension

• Poe finished his studies at university. a. True b. False
• His first work was published anonymously. a. True b. False
• His wife died after two years of marriage. a. True b. False
• His literary work is considered to be part of the "art for art's sake" movement. a. True b. False

Related Pages:

• Edgar Allan Poe Bibliography
• Edgar Allan Poe Documentary
• The Black cat
• Quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe

Edger Allan Poe was an American poet, writer, literary critic, and editor. Poe is famous for his short-short stories, particularly his mysterious and ghastly stories, and poetry. In the United States and American Literature, he is one of the essential members of Romanticism.

He is one of the early earliest writers who started writing short stories. Edger Allan Poe is regarded as the initiator of the genre of detective fiction. He also contributed with his writing in the newly developing science fiction genre. He is the first American writer whose sole source of earning was writing. Due to this, he suffers a financial crisis in both life and career. 

The life and works of Edger Allan Poe have greatly influenced the literary world. He specialized in the fields of cryptography and cosmology. Poe and his works both appear all the way through the popular culture in music, literature, television, and films. It was his distinguishing works in the genre of mystery that the annual award known as Edgar Award is given by Mystery Writers of America.

A Short Biography of Edgar Allan Poe

Edger Allan Poe was born on 19 th January 1809 to Elizabeth Poe and David Poe. Elizabeth was an English born actress, whereas David Poe was an actor and belonged to Baltimore. In1811, his mother died in Virginia. He was then taken to the home of a rich merchant, John Allan. The wife was the merchant who had not any child.

From 1815 to 1820, he was taken to England and Scotland. Over there, he received a classical education that continued even in Richmond. In 1826, he attended the University of Virginia for eleven months. He was involved in gambling in university, and after intense losses, his guardians did not permit him to continue and took him back to Richmond. In Richmond, he met Elmira Royster and engaged.

In 1827, he went to Boston and published a pamphlet of Tamerlane, Byronic poem, and Other Poems. Forced by poverty, he joined the army under the name of Edger A. Perry. However, his foster mother died which causes him to leave the army eventually, and his foster father gets him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy.

Before leaving for the academy, Poe published a new volume containing Tamerlane, Al Aaraaf, and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829. Being absent for a week from a drill and classes, he was expelled from the academy. He went to New York City and bought volumes of poems, including masterpieces. The volumes contain the poems of P.B. Shelley, John Keats, and S.T. Coleridge. These poets influenced his writing greatly.

When he went back to Baltimore, he started writing his short stories. He published “MS. Found in a Bottle” in 1833 that won $50 from the weekly magazine of Baltimore. In 1835, he started working as an editor for Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He made his reputation as a critical reviewer. He married his cousin Virginia Clemm who was only 13 years old at that time.

Because of his drinking, Poe was temporarily expelled from his job.  He then went to New York City. He became a drinking addict, in order to stand in a group of people and talk well, he needs to drink slightly. Even though he would not intake intoxication, he would only appear in the public when he had taken some. From this, people started assuming that Poe was a drug addict. However, according to the mental tests, he had cut in his brain.

In 1838, he published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, long narrative prose. In this work, he combined facts with the wildest fantasies. This work is considered to be inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In 1839, he moved to Philadelphia and started working as a co-editor at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. He signed a contract for a monthly article. This contact made him write “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “William Wilson.” These are the stories that have supernatural horror.  

In 1839, the tales of Poe the Grotesque and Arabesque also appeared . In June 1840, he resigned from his job at the magazine. In 1841, he returned and edited Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine by his successor Graham. In this magazine, he published his first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

His short story “The Golden Bud” won a $100 prize in 1843 from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. This award gave him immense publicity. He returned to New York in 1844 and wrote the short story “The Balloon Hoax” for the magazine Sun. He started working as the sub-editor of the New York Mirror and worked under N.P. Willis. Willis became his lifelong friend.

He published his most celebrated poem “The Raven” on 28th January 1845, which made him nationwide famous. He changed his jobs several times in the following years and published different volumes of his poems and short stories.

In January 1847, his wife, Virginia Clemn, died. He went to Providence, Rhode Island, in 1848 to marry his beloved and poet Sarah Helen Whitman. Their commitment was brief. Poe had a very close but friendly relationship with both Sarah Anna Lewis and Annie Richmond. They both helped him financially. Poe presented a poetic tribute to both.

He published a lecture, “Eureka,” in 1848. It is a transcendental illustration of the universe. Some critics claim it to a masterpiece, whereas for some it is complete nonsense. In 1849, Poe went to the South and engaged to Elmira Royster. They spent a summer together happily, and Poe suffered only one or two lapses. Another great source of his happiness was his friendship with a young poet Susan Archer Talley. She was his childhood friend.

In September 1849, he left Richmond and went to Baltimore. He had a feeling of death. He died on 7 th October 1849, for an unknown reason. It is assumed that he either died of drinking or from a heart attack. He was buried in Baltimore in Westminster Presbyterian Churchyard.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Writing style

The genre for which Edger Allan Poe is best known for is the Gothic genre . His works adhere to the conventions of the genre. Therefore, it appeals to the public state. His gothic fiction deals with the recurring themes of death. It also includes the physical signs of death, concerns of early burial; effects of decomposition; mourning, and the reanimation of death.

His works are considered to belong to the genre of dark Romanticism. This genre started as a reaction to transcendentalism, which is highly disliked, Poe. He called the followers of the movement of transcendentalism as “ Frog-Pondian .” He also ridiculed their writings by calling it “metaphor – run mad” elapsing into “mysticism for mysticism’s sake” or “obscurity for obscurity’s sake.” In reality, Poe does not like transcendentalism but the sophists and pretenders among the transcendentalists.

Apart from horror fiction, Edger Allan Poe also wrote hoaxes, humour tales, and satires . To add comic effect in his works, he used absurd indulgence and irony . He uses the comic effect to free the readers from the conventionality of culture. The first-ever story that Poe published was “Metzengerstein.” This story is also his first horror story; however, it was initially intended as comedy ridiculing the popular genre.

He also reestablishes the genre of science fiction through his writing that responds to the newly emerging technologies. For example, the story “The Balloon-Hoax” is about the hot air balloon that emerged in his time.

Edger Allan Poe’s works are based on themes that were according to the tastes of the mass-market. To satisfy the taste of the masses, he also included the elements of pseudo-sciences like physiognomy and phrenology in his works.

Literary theory

The critical literary theories presented by Poe in his criticism are reflected in his writings. One of the best critical essays he wrote is “The Poetic Principle.” Though Poe believed that the meaning of the literary work should not be on the surface, it must be deep and undercurrent, he does not like allegory and didacticism.

For him, the works which have their meaning on the surface do not belong to art. Moreover, qualitative work must be brief and focused on one exact effect. Lastly, he also held that the writers should sensibly analyze every idea and sentiment. Poe’s essay “The Philosophy of Composition” deals with the method of writing in his masterpiece poem “The Raven.”  In the essay, Poe claims that he had strictly adhered to this method.

Along with the satanic and occult , the works of Edger Allan Poe is concerned with Romanticism . His works are also inspired by his intense dreams. He shaped his dreams with his distinctive imagery and use of language. His works have unique imaginations, elaborated techniques, objectivity, and spontaneity . He was appreciated even in his life for his clear and comprehensive criticism as an evaluator of the literature of his time, his poetic idealism and melodic gift, and his dramatic storytelling art. With his distinguished writing style; he secured an imminent position among the well-known men of letters.

Edger Allan Poe had a dual personality . This personality is also reflected in his works. The views and judgments prevailing in his time about him appear to the extent of coexistence totally different from two persons in him. He was devoted and gentle to the people he loved, whereas he was self-centered and irritable to the people he does not like.

The best fictional works of Poe are concerned with sadness and terror. However, his poetry is quite pleasant, as is his company. He admired the works of Alexander Pope and William Shakespeare. His writings have his sense of humor .

Poe was a visionary and an idealist. He desires for both the ideal of imagination and the ideal of heart. Most of his poetry is inspired by his sensitivity to the sweetness and beauty of women. For example, his poem “To One in Paradise,” “To Helen,” “Annabel Lee,” and “Eulalie” is all about women.  The poems “Ligeia” and” Eleonora” are his hymns in full-tone prose to love and beauty. In the poem “Israfel,” he is taken to the world of dreams from reality through his imagination. The distinguishing characteristic of his late-year works was his “ Pythian mood .”

He dodges the readers from the world’s common experiences with unnerving thoughts, fears, and impulses . Such familiar mode is present in his poetry, such as “Lenore,” “The Valley on Unrest,” “The Raven,” “Ulalume,” and “For Annie” and also in his famous short stories. He portrayed the astonishing effect of death in his tale by using a dark mood, fear, and impulses.

His works that deal with the theme of death are “The Masque of the Red Death,” The Fall of House of Usher,” “The Fact in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “The Oval Portrait,” “The Premature Burial,” and “Shadow.”

He also has themes of crime and wickedness in the stories “The Black cat,” “Berenice,” “The Imp of Perverse,” “William Morris,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” 

The stories, “Ligeia,” “Metzengerstein,” and “Morella” deal with the themes of survival after desolation . Lastly, he also has the theme of fatality in the short stories “The man of Crowd and The Assignation.

In the short story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” he does not allow his character to become a victim of mysterious forces, he uses the suffering of forthcoming death to make his stories nerve-racking. Moreover, he also employs grotesque elements in his works that deal with the aftermath of death: corpses and decay.

Moreover, Poe also includes the minute details in his works. For instance, when in the long narratives and the description that introduces the tale or setting of the story, observe little details. He is closely associated with his power of reasoning.

Poe was proud of his logic, and he handled his logic very carefully to impress the public with his stories. He was highly praised for his problem disentanglement, thought-reading, and cryptography that he credited to characters C. Auguste Dupin and William Legard. It was these characters that made him write detective stories and science fiction.

The duality in his personality is also reflected in his art. He wrote weird and angelic poetry. His poetry has the utmost rhythm and appealing words. Similarly, his prose has suggestiveness and extravagant beauty with the superficial recklessness of persuasive motivation. However, he also wrote about the dark psychology or the plans of inexorable plots in dry and hardstyle. The duality of his mind, temper, and art are blended into a unity of structure, tone, and movement in his masterpieces. These masterpieces are the most effective and overwhelmed with various elements.

Poe also focuses on the precision of meter, structure, and language . As a critic, he formulated his own principles for the short story. He searched for the ancient unities in the plot : the unity of action, plot, and magnitude. He added mood and effects to these units. However, he was not very harsh in his principles. Though he praised brief and focused works, he also admired long works, morals, and allegories provided that they are not presented crudely. He also praised the originality in the work that was totally different from his; he was a surprisingly generous critic of minor writers.

Works Of Edgar Allan Poe

• A Dream Within a Dream

Short Stories

• The Tell Tale Heart
• The Masque of the Red Death
• The Fall of the House of Usher

Encyclopedia of Humanities

The most comprehensive and reliable Encyclopedia of Humanities

Edgar Allan Poe

We explore the life of Edgar Allan Poe, and his main literary works. In addition, we discuss why he is regarded as one of the universal masters of the short story.

Who was Edgar Allan Poe?

Edgar Allan Poe was a celebrated American writer, regarded as one of the founding fathers of the American short story tradition and a central figure of American Romanticism . His work is considered the starting point of the detective fiction genre, and a contribution of unparalleled influence to horror and science fiction literature.

Poe had a short and tumultuous life, completely devoted to writing . His literary works, which delve into mystery, horror, and the macabre, provided him with a modest livelihood; yet, they have been a unique source of inspiration for subsequent generations of writers.

Poe is an extraordinarily popular figure in contemporary culture, with many of his works having been adapted to various arts and formats: film, animation, and even video games. Today, several of his former homes have been transformed into museums , and the annual literary award given by the Mystery Writers of America bears his name.

• See also: Victor Hugo

Birth and family life of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 18, 1809 . His parents were American David Poe Jr. and British Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, both theater actors. Edgar was the middle child of the couple, William being the eldest, and Rosalie the youngest, born in 1810. 

Tragedy marked Edgar's early life. When he was still an infant, his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother to the care of the three siblings. The following year, she succumbed to tuberculosis. Left orphaned, each of the Poe siblings was taken into different homes : William went to the paternal family home in Baltimore, while Edgar and Rosalie were adopted by the Allans and Mckenzies respectively, both from Richmond, Virginia.

John and Frances Allan, Edgar's foster parents, raised and baptized him in the Episcopal faith. Although they never formally adopted him, they did give him their last name . Edgar lived with them until early adulthood.

In 1815, the Allans traveled to the United Kingdom, where Edgar studied in Ayrshire, Scotland, his foster father’s birthplace . Shortly after, in 1816, he studied in London, both in Chelsea and Stoke Newington, before the family returned to Richmond in 1820. In 1825, after receiving a large inheritance, Edgar's foster father purchased a two-story house, which he named "Moldavia".

The following year, Edgar fell in love with Sarah Elmira Royster and also entered the University of Virginia , which he attended for only for 11 months. The institution was in its early stages, and university life was chaotic. Edgar soon found himself immersed in gambling debts, and the financial support from his foster father began to wane. This period marked the onset of family confrontations, leading to a growing estrangement between Edgar and his foster father.  

Eventually, Edgar was forced to drop out of university and return home. There, he was met with a rather hostile atmosphere: he was no longer fully welcome at home, and his former sweetheart had married another man . He then made the decision to leave for Boston in 1827.

Boston and military career

While in Boston, Poe used the pseudonym "Henri Le Rennet", and engaged in writing for newspapers and doing clerical work, among other low-paid jobs. However, he still managed to find time to devote himself to a newly discovered passion: writing .

In fact, in 1827 he published his first work: a pamphlet-sized collection of poems in the style of Lord Byron (1788-1824), entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems , which he signed as "a Bostonian". Fifty copies were made, which went totally unnoticed .

That same year, with poverty closing in on him, Poe had no choice but to enlist in the army, which he did under the name Edgar A. Perry . He initially served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor and later at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, where he was part of the crew of the brig Waltham and attained his first promotions. Two years later, he became Sergeant Major for Artillery.

With the intention of ending his military service early and enrolling at the Military Academy West Point, New York, to study and pursue a career, Poe decided to resume contact with his foster father . He needed his support to leave the service and enroll at West Point, having had no contact with his family for quite some time.

His foster father, however, still held reservations against him and took several months to reply , not even writing to inform him about the illness of his adoptive mother. Frances Allan died in February 1829, and Poe was finally allowed to visit his family. He reconciled with his foster father, who promised to support his admission to the academy in New York.

Thus, after finding a replacement, Poe left the military service, and before heading to New York, he spent some time in Baltimore with his father's family . There, he wrote his second collection of poems: Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems , published in 1829.

This second work, centered on an astronomical anecdote by Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and the Quran’s description of paradise, contains the longest poem Poe ever wrote . It received scant attention and mostly negative reviews, with the exception of writer, editor, and critic John Neal (1793-1876), who gave Poe "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard", as he himself defined it years later.

Poe finally arrived at West Point in 1830 and enrolled as a cadet . That same year, his foster father married Louisa Patterson, which greatly displeased Poe. His reproaches over this and illegitimate children ultimately estranged Poe from his foster father, who finally decided to disown him.

The life of a writer

Edgar Allan Poe did not last long at the West Point Academy. By 1830, he was determined to be expelled and pursue a life as a writer . Thus, he did everything possible to be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged, which he achieved in less than a year.

In February 1831, while in New York, Poe published his third book, simply called Poems . The funding for this volume came from his former fellow peers at the military academy, each contributing 75 cents to the project.

The book was artfully labeled as a "second edition" , since it contained the same long poems from his previous two books, along with six other unpublished works. It was dedicated "To the US Corps of Cadets".

Poe, however, did not stay much longer in New York, as his older brother was seriously ill due to complications derived from alcoholism . In March 1831, he returned to Baltimore and accompanied his brother until his death, in August of the same year.

While in Baltimore, Poe began to move away from poetry and made his early attempts at writing short stories . Times were tough for writers: newspapers and publications were abundant but fleeting, paid little and often delayed, and there was no international copyright law to prevent American publishers from releasing unauthorized copies of British authors rather than support local talent. To make matters worse, the economic crisis of 1837 complicated the situation even further.

The "Panic of 1837" was one of the most severe economic depressions in US history, comparable to the Great Depression of 1929. It started during the initial weeks of Martin Van Buren's (1782-1862) presidency when, in response to certain measures of the previous government, banks announced that they would no longer make their payments in gold and silver coins. This led to a speculative fever followed by a five-year economic depression, during which many banks went bankrupt and unemployment soared.

These circumstances forced Poe to beg for the payment of his works and live in a state of constant economic uncertainty. Still, his prose brought him his first successes . While he was working on what came to be his only theatrical piece, Politian , his first short stories saw the light of day: the weekly periodical Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded a prize in 1833 to his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle", which opened a space for him in the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond.

Initially, his role in the periodical was that of contributor: he published "Metzengerstein", considered his first horror tale , followed by "Berenice", which was so shocking that the editors received numerous protest letters from readers. Immediately after, Poe became an editor.

On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin on his father’s side, Virginia Clem. He was 26 years old, and she was only 13. By all indications, Poe was a loving and affectionate husband, though that same year he began with his drinking problems . In fact, his sporadic but publicly embarrassing bouts of drinking led to his dismissal from the Southern Literary Messenger in 1837.

Once again, Poe decided to try his luck in New York.

The prolific years

Poe devoted the following years to producing some of his greatest works . In 1838, his only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket , was published in New York, which was highly acclaimed. This work is considered the source of inspiration for Moby Dick , by Herman Melville (1819-1891) .

A year later, Poe and his wife moved to Philadelphia, where Burton's Gentleman's Magazine offered him the position of assistant editor . It was in this publication that his tales "William Wilson" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" appeared, the latter being one of his most famous short stories. Many of these tales were compiled in 1840 in his first published collection: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque , which received mixed reviews and did not sell well.

That same year, Poe was determined to start his own magazine that was to be called The Penn or The Stylus . He even bought advertising space for it in Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post , but he would never get his project off the ground.

In 1841 Poe resigned from Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and secured a position at the prestigious Graham's Magazine as a writer and co-editor. There, he published "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", regarded as the first detective story in history .

Around this period, he wrote other prominent short stories that appeared in various publications, such as "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Gold-Bug". With the latter, he won a $100 prize from Philadelphia's Dollar Newspaper , bringing him considerable fame in the literary circuit.

In 1842, life took a turn for the worse for Poe. Virginia, his wife, showed the first signs of tuberculosis, which would ultimately claim her life.

The Raven and death of Virginia

Virginia's illness progressed quickly, and Poe faced his wife's health problems with desperation . He began to drink again, and sought better and more stable opportunities. It was thus that Poe approached the Whig Party and the presidency of John Tyler (1790-1862), thanks to the mediation of his friend Frederick Thomas.

Poe aimed for a position in the US Customs Service, but he missed his scheduled interview, citing illness . It is possible that he may have been grappling with alcohol-related issues. Although he was granted a second interview, the available positions had already been filled.

In 1844, Poe resigned from the magazines and decided to return to New York, where he briefly worked as assistant editor for the New York Mirror , run by N. P. Willis, who became his close friend for the remainder of his life. That year he published "The Balloon-Hoax" in The Sun , and the following year, a preview of what was to become his most famous poem: "The Raven", in the New York Mirror .

"The Raven" is a lengthy narrative poem about a mourning lover grieving over the death of his beloved Leonore who receives in his chamber a stealthy visit from a raven at midnight. The bird, perched just out of his reach, continuously evokes his suffering with its cawing, which seems to say "nevermore":

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee Respite—respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Following its publication in 1845, "The Raven" was replicated in numerous US newspapers, including the New York Tribune , Broadway Journal , and the Southern Literary Messenger , where Poe had formerly worked. The immediate success of this work made its author a nationally renowned writer , though he only received $9 in payment for its publication.

With fame also came the attention of other authors, many of whom Poe had antagonistic relationships with . His literary rivalry with Rufus W. Griswold (1812-1857) is well-known. They even competed for the love of fellow poet Frances Sargent Locke Osgood (1811-1850). Poe had a brief affair with her, to which his dying wife did not object. However, Frances' indiscretions regarding the affair generated a certain scandal in the literary circuit.

Poe then moved from the New York Mirror to the Broadway Journal , and after the disappearance of this journal in 1846, the writer, his mother-in-law and his dying wife relocated to a house in Fordham, in the Bronx , known today as the "Poe Cottage". There, in the master bedroom, Virginia Clemm Poe succumbed to tuberculosis on January 30, 1847.

Poe’s final years

Poe never recovered from Virginia's death. His behavior following the death of his wife became erratic and self-destructive . Throughout 1847, he courted poet Sarah Helen Whitman, with whom he had brief and failed engagement. He also had close but platonic relationships with Annie Richmond and Sarah Anna Lewis, to whom he dedicated poems and from whom he often received financial help.

In 1848, he published "Eureka", a truly remarkable prose poem , considered a stroke of genius by some and described as absurd by others, in which he sought out to explain the universe from a philosophical perspective. Dedicated to Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), it revisited old obsessions from his youth, like astronomy, occultism, and metaphysics.

The following year, Poe traveled south, and wandered through Philadelphia and Richmond , where he eventually became engaged to the then widow Elmira Royster. They spent a last happy summer together, in the company of childhood friends and poet Susan Archer Telley, with whom he had a short-lived friendship. Yet, in numerous letters and writings he expressed his longing for death.

Finally, in October 1849, Poe was found in the streets of Baltimore, in a state of delirium and great distress . He was taken to hospital, where he died on October 7, for reasons that remain unknown. He was forty years old and was in such a dire condition that he was unable to explain what had happened to him.

During his agony, Poe is said to have repeated the name "Reynolds", and his final words were "Lord, help my poor soul". Newspapers at the time reported his death with euphemisms like "cerebral inflammation" or "congestion of the brain" , often used for alcohol-related deaths.

Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe

Upon the announcement of his death, his long-time rival Rufus W. Griswold published a long and slanted obituary in the New York Tribune under the pseudonym Ludwig , portraying Poe as a lunatic, a nocturnal wanderer who muttered curses in madness. The obituary began with "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it".

That was not Griswald's last attempt to tarnish Poe's memory. In 1850, he published along with James Russell Lowell and Nathaniel Parker Lewis a compilation of Poe's works, accompanied by a biographical note written by Griswold himself, in which he portrayed Poe as a depraved psychopath and drug addict. Although most claims in this biography were complete and malicious fabrications, which many of Poe's acquaintances denounced , this controversial image of the writer gained popularity among his readers and among those who assumed that, given the morbid themes of his tales, the author must therefore be an evil man himself. A more objective biography of Poe did not appear until 1875.

Poe’s funeral was a simple rite, attended by few people, and he was buried in the courtyard of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. His grave initially only bore the "No. 80" identification , since the marble gravestone with the epitaph his nephew Nelson had paid for was lost in an accident.

Years later, in 1873, poet Paul Hamilton Hayne visited his resting place and published an outraged article about the undignified condition of the grave, which prompted the community to raise funds for a reburial. On October 1, 1875, Poe was reburied in a privileged site in front of the church , with a monument bearing his name, alongside the bodies of his wife and mother-in-law.

Poe's short stories and poems, obsessed with grief, melancholy, and crime, were highly praised by French poets Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), to whom Poe owes international fame. Since then, his works have served as a unique source of inspiration for many other great writers, such as Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), and Julio Cortázar (1914-1984).

Today, Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as one of the great masters of the short story and a seminal figure in American literature . In addition, he is the father of the detective fiction genre and the horror tale, as well as a prominent thinker on literary theory. His short stories have been widely translated and adapted to film, television, animation, and even video games.

Among Edgar Allan Poe's major and most renowned works are:

• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838 novel)
• "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839 short story)
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841 short story)
• "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842 short story)
• "The Black Cat" (1843 short story)
• "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843 short story)
• "The Gold-Bug" (1843 short story)
• "The Purloined Letter" (1844 short story)
• "The Raven" (1845 poem)
• "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846 essay)
• "Eureka" (1848 prose poem or essay)

Referencias

• Barzun, J., Cestre, C. y Mabbott, T. (2023). “Edgar Allan Poe (American writer)”. The Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/
• Educ.ar. (2022). Edgar Allan Poe, el inventor del miedo. https://www.educ.ar/
• Reagan Wilson, C. y Ferris, W. (eds.). (1989). “Edgar Allan Poe”. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture . University of North Carolina Press.
• The Poe Museum. (2023). Poe Biography. https://poemuseum.org/

Explore next:

• Virginia Woolf
• Brothers Grimm
• Jorge Luis Borges

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Edgar Allan Poe: Brief Biography Essay

Life overview, work and the four genres, introspective narrator in “the tell-tale heart”, poe’s legacy to literature.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers in the history of Western literature, whose work has largely defined the genre of American Gothic. His compelling, often disturbing writing incorporates several Romantic attitudes, as well as the idea of the sublime. The concept of the sublime, that being a term for whatever excites the ideas of pain and danger, is widely present in his fiction. Sublime’s exploration of the darkest sides of the human soul and psyche has contributed greatly to the development of the horror genre. Poe’s depiction of some of the major ideas of Romanticism is another noticeable feature of his writing. Subjectivity and emphasis on individualism, romanticized solitude put in the spotlight, and the belief that imagination is superior to reason are some of the Romantic ideas represented in Poe’s characters.

Edgar Allan Poe is an American poet, prosaist, and literary critic. Born into a Boston family of actors at the beginning of the 19 th century, he became an orphan at a young age and was taken in by a successful merchant household. Throughout his life, Poe went through the conflict with his adoptive father, military service, his brother’s death, and a long period of financial struggle. Despite ending up becoming one of the genre-defining writers for horror and gothic literature, Poe was forced to beg for monetary assistance throughout his life. His writing career coincided with a difficult period in the American publishing industry that, at the time, was regularly undercompensating its authors (Safner 15). The writer’s life and work alike were impacted by his depression and other mental illnesses that aided him in the detailed depiction of disruptive, maladaptive thoughts (Dean and Boyd 490). Poe’s death was mysterious and rather painful: on October 7 th , 1849, he passed away after a prolonged delirium fit, fearing whatever awaited him in the afterlife.

The four genres Poe has worked in are science fiction, horror fiction, adventure fiction, and detective fiction: a form of literature he is frequently credited with inventing. His horror fiction works are characterized by the wide usage of the sublime, as mentioned above. They frequently incorporate such themes as mental disorders, body horror, and unexpected, uncontrolled violence or fear (Dean and Boyd, 483). His works in science fiction and adventure fiction generally tended to appease the mass market, as much of the writer’s career was dedicated to commercial writing. The detective genre, however, presents an interesting case, as Poe’s short story The Murders in The Rue Morgue is believed to be the first of its kind. Its narrative focuses on the investigation of the brutal murder of the two women, whose case presents a seemingly unsolvable mystery. The story’s protagonist, an amateur detective, finds a murderer – a giant ape – while the police forces are helpless: a plot device that later becomes emblematic for the genre.

The Tell-Tale Heart is the story of a man who decides to confess his crimes after committing a murder due to being tormented by his own internal guilt. It is a clear example of the illustrative narrator in fiction, who is defined by the story’s exploration of the protagonist’s feelings and thoughts. The narrator fits the definition perfectly, being so in touch with his consciousness that it does not allow him to forget about what he has done for even a minute. The protagonist is intentionally left nameless to highlight his insanity and distance him from the common patterns of thinking (Amir 596). Even the reasoning behind the murder is deeply troubling and odd, having nothing to do with more understandable motives like greed or revenge. Instead, the narrator cannot distract himself from the “evil eye” of his victim, with whom he has no other quarrels. The feelings of paranoia and fear of the “eye” consume the narrator, compelling him to murder a helpless old man. The exploration of the protagonist’s unhealthy internal world is then conducted in the rest of the short story. Feeling guilty and scared, he further descends into the nightmare of insanity, hearing deranged sounds that the others are unaware of.

Poe’s legacy to literature in America and worldwide is undeniable: one of the most recognizable Gothic writers, a clear example of a romanticist and an inventor of the entire genre. His fascination with death, torture, and the dark side of the human soul, in general, grant his writing a truly unique place in the literary canon. Edgar Poe is the most known, arguably, for being willing to revel in the dark and the horrifying, and thus many of his works were considered shocking at the time. His rich gothic imagery captures attention and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, compelling them to keep reading no matter how disturbing the story gets. Furthermore, his constant financial struggle and the internal conflict between preferred themes and the need to write for money might resonate significantly with the writers of today.

Amir, Shamaila, “Analysis of the Short Story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe”. The Creative Launcher , vol. 2, no. 3, 2020. Web.

Dean, Hannah J., and Ryan L. Boyd. “Deep Into That Darkness Peering: A Computational Analysis Of The Role Of Depression In Edgar Allan Poe’s Life And Death”. Journal Of Affective Disorders , vol. 266, 2020, pp. 482-491. Elsevier BV. Web .

Safner, Ryan, “Honor Among Thieves: How 19th Century American Pirate Publishers Simulated Copyright Protection”, 2021. Web.

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1. IvyPanda . "Edgar Allan Poe: Brief Biography." October 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/edgar-allan-poe-brief-biography/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Edgar Allan Poe: Brief Biography." October 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/edgar-allan-poe-brief-biography/.

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The 10 Best Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations

I n the past few years, director Mike Flanagan has embarked on a spooky adaptation tour of sorts. He tackled Stephen King with Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep , received massive amounts of praise for his treatment of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House , turned Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw into The Haunting of Bly Manor, and even took a stab at young-adult author Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club . On October 12, Netflix audiences will get to see how he handles Edgar Allan Poe with the miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher .

This latest adaptation is notable due to the sprawling legacy Poe left behind. The author is essentially the first son of American horror and detective literature, and his stories and poems influenced other writers like James and H.P. Lovecraft. Poe’s work has been featured in horror cinema for almost as long as the genre has existed. If you’re looking to experience it onscreen before the upcoming Netflix show, you’re certainly not lacking in the way of solid offerings. From the early silent-film era to our favorite mean yellow family, here are ten adaptations that best exemplify Poe’s revolutionary work in the realm of the macabre.

The Plague in Florence (1919)

Written by Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang, who went on to direct Metropolis and M , The Plague of Florence adapts Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death . Known for its personification of a plague as a mysterious figure, the short story was first published just a few years after a cholera pandemic tore across the globe claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Most film adaptations place the story in medieval times, however, and Lang goes one step further with his silent film by rendering the plague as a woman who seems to tempt society as it perishes around her. We’re so consumed by lust and greed, Lang proposes, that death doesn’t even have to prey on us — we simply fall to it.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

With adaptations of Frankenstein and Dracula , Universal Pictures established itself as the go-to studio for American horror films in the early 1930s, and it would soon include Poe’s work in its stable of shocks with Murders in the Rue Morgue . This wasn’t the first American adaptation of Poe’s work; among others, D.W. Griffith filmed The Tell-Tale Heart in 1914, and the titular Phantom dressed as the Red Death for a bit in Universal’s first Phantom of the Opera film in 1925. Murders of the Rue Morgue , though, capitalizes on Poe at his outlandishly ghoulish best.

Centered on the story of a mad doctor who kidnaps women and injects them with ape blood to create a proper mate for his gorilla henchman, the film expands Poe’s short story about a killer orangutan to give leading man Bela Lugosi more creepy things to do. Fresh off Dracula , Lugosi would soon be shoved into every evil doctor/scientist role Hollywood had to offer, and Rue Morgue captures him at the height of his scenery-chewing aplomb. Director Robert Florey, having been passed over to helm Frankenstein , fills Rue Morgue with touches of German Expressionism, and the movie ends with an ape being shot and falling from a tall building — one year before King Kong .

The Black Cat (1934)

As Rue Morgue made abundantly clear, Poe’s work was ripe for narrative extrapolation. The Black Cat has little to do with his short story of the same title aside from the appearance of a black cat and Poe’s name featuring prominently on the poster. Instead, nestled inside a tale about a mysterious house built in a ruined World War I fort and the plans for revenge that go on there, it provided a chance for Universal Pictures to pit its two horror icons against each other — Lugosi takes on Boris Karloff here with the Frankenstein actor now playing a very effective serial murderer and cult leader.

Though moves Poe’s story outside the context of a man driven mad by a certain kind of cat, it decidedly takes advantage of the author’s consistent emotional thematics. The whole thing reeks of paranoia and of an untrustworthy world looming above to swallow you whole. It even allows Lugosi, who was far more well known for his otherworldly screen presence, to tap into a pathos he was rarely afforded in his career. And Karloff obviously relishes his malice, grinning and puppeteering the emotions of everyone around him just as Poe did with his readers: “Did you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead .”

The Tell-Tale Heart (1941)

While Universal flooded cinemas with horror films throughout the 1930s (the studio released a third loose Poe adaptation with The Raven in 1935), MGM stuck to its dramas and comedies. Horror had burned it a few times, typically thanks to director Tod Browning, who turned in the controversial Freaks . However, when it did produce horror — like 1941’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which was nominated for three Academy Awards) — it was something special. This short, faithful adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart , made to play in theaters before the feature film screened, is often stunning to look at.

Through a concoction of slow zooms and desperate close-ups, the feeling of guilt in the film becomes inescapable. Combined with its excellent sound design, this is a Poe adaptation that thrives purely on the author’s work.

House of Usher (1960)

The most famous Poe adaptations are likely those directed by Roger Corman, who in 1960 was quickly on his way to becoming a B-movie wunderkind. Poe’s stories, already in the public domain, were relatively cheap to adapt even with Corman’s ambitious set designs and the hiring of notable writers like novelist Richard Matheson ( I Am Legend ) to pen the scripts. House of Usher would prove they had major box-office potential, too.

The glue that held Corman’s films together was Vincent Price, a performer who, as Universal honed with Lugosi three decades earlier, could shift between menace and camp with ease. Here, Price taps into the former, playing one sibling in the cursed Usher family who is doomed to sink with his mansion in the death grip of his mad sister. Poe adaptations were generally black-and-white affairs before House of Usher arrived in gorgeous color, perfectly capturing the rotten setting and the bizarre characters who inhabit it.

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

In retrospect, House of Usher seems like a warm-up for The Pit and the Pendulum : Matheson returns as the screenwriter, and Price gets even more chances to luxuriate in macabre abandon (he plays two roles!). Corman’s dungeon set pieces are a wonderful combination of construction and matte paintings, and if you came to the theater to see the titular torture device, Corman didn’t disappoint. To match Price, the director hired Barbara Steele, who had starred in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday the year before. Here, she has just as much fun hissing her lines, and as in that landmark Italian film, she gets trapped in a gruesome iron maiden at one point — hey, if it works, it works!

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Corman directed eight Poe adaptations from 1960 to 1965, but not all were created equal. Premature Burial ? Without Price, it isn’t much fun. Tales of Terror ? A solid but uninspired collection of short films. Corman’s last true Poe masterpiece was The Masque of the Red Death , a beautiful movie about royal hedonism running amok during what is basically the apocalypse. As Prince Prospero, a Satan-worshipping ruler, Price has little use for humanity and delivers one of the best performances of his career. He is all smirking sadism until, of course, his fate drives him to impotent panic.

There are no giant pendulums or burning castles here, but Corman manages to harness the Poe story’s sheer delirium. This is especially showcased in the scene where corpses, killed by the Red Death at a ball, continue to dance. The director also captured Poe’s criticism of class and the price of unhinged decadence: “Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long, long time.”

ABC Weekend Special — “The Gold-Bug” (1980)

The length of Poe’s stories made them prime targets for anthology television shows. A version of “The Cask of Amontillado” showed up in a 1949 episode of Suspense (starring Lugosi, who was by then suffering from deteriorating health owing to his drug addiction.) The best of these may be the Daytime Emmy–winning “The Gold-Bug” from ABC Weekend Special . It features a young Anthony Michael Hall in a surprisingly haunting mystery that serves as a kind of coming-of-age story.

Typically trapped under the thumb of his domineering uncle, Hall’s character finds escapism and twisted kinship among outcasts on an island. But he gets mired in trying to understand the secrets of the titular bug and eventually becomes just as obsessed with tales of buried treasure as his questionable allies are. Though this short TV movie is aimed at a young audience, Hall’s performance helps retain the doomed fixations of Poe’s tale.

The Simpsons — “Treehouse of Horror” (1990)

“The Raven” has proved the trickiest of Poe’s works to adapt. Its brevity and the confined setting usually left film versions to their own invention. Out of all things, however, the first Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” special gave us the most faithful rendition we’re ever likely to see. With narration by James Earl Jones (but Homer as the face of the narrator) and Bart as the confounding Raven, we get a segment that is, oddly enough, less intent on going for laughs and more focused on quoting Poe’s poem in full. It’s funny but also a bit awe inspiring in its dedication.

Masters of Horror — “The Black Cat” (2007)

There are plenty of depictions of Poe himself on film that mix the writer’s biography with the content of his stories, but no actor has been as committed to this as horror staple Jeffrey Combs. Under the direction of Stuart Gordon (who had previously made a just-all-right adaptation of The Pit and the Pendulum ), Combs plays Poe in this Masters of Horror episode as an alcoholic trapped helplessly in his own nightmares, tormented by both a black cat and other visions of death; the episode culminates in hallucinations and disturbing bloodshed. Combs would reprise his role as Poe in a one-man show a few years later, remaining just as fascinated by the author as his critics and fans have been for nearly 200 years.

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