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The Life of Edgar Allan Poe

(1809-1849)

            Edgar Allan Poe was an American short story writer and poet who lived a life of misery, but attained literary immortality for all of his suffering. He is one of the foremost writers of the horror genre, and has been called the founding father of the detective story, deeply influencing Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Poe paved the way for H.P. Lovecraft, another short story writer who died in obscurity, and both, in turn, deeply influenced the novelist Stephen King. King has achieved the kind of success that neither author managed to reach in their lifetimes. Poe's works have been called inherently flawed by even his most supportive critics, and his talent in literature has been called into question countless times, but despite all of this, even his harshest critics have admitted that the man was most assuredly a literary genius who has set the bar for American mystery and horror.

            Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809. His parents, David Poe, Jr. and Elizabeth Hopkins Poe, were both actors who maintained a modest income during their short marriage. The year after he was born, Poe's father died, and in 1811, Poe's mother died of tuberculosis, or "consumption," as it was known then. At the age of two, the young Edgar watched his mother lying in her death bed, coughing up blood all over the sheets, and the horrid experience left a mark upon the young man. Following the death of his mother, Poe and his siblings, William and Rosalie, were shipped to various foster homes and adopted by different families. Edgar was taken into the home of John Allan, a wealthly tobacco merchant, and Francis Allan. Mrs. Allan was a thoughtful and loving surrogate mother to Poe, while John Allan was a massive and towering father figure who treated Edgar as more of a business partner than a son. Poe was deeply impressed with his father's status as a wealthy and wise businessman, and for much of his youth, John Allan's shadow cast over everything Edgar did.

            It was because of his father that the young man, now known as Edgar Allan Poe (he was never officially adopted by the Allan family), took an early interest in sports. Though he downplayed his athletic abilities later in life, the young Edgar was a natural in sports, and became well-known all throughout the town of Richmond for his feats. Jane Staynard, a childhood friend's mother, proved an early crush for young Edgar. Mrs. Staynard, however, died when Poe was only fifteen, and the young man was immediately sent into a long period of grieving for the dead woman. Not long afterward, Francis Allan came down with tuberculosis, and Edgar was to relive the experience of watching a mother die. Throughout Mrs. Allan's illness, her husband had illicit affairs with other women, and when Edgar found out, he lost a great deal of respect for the man, and even grew to loathe him. This development led to difficulties in between Poe and John Allan, and after the death of Francis, John gave Poe enough money for the young man to enroll in the University of Virginia, but little else. At the school, the seventeen-year-old aged eighteen, gained a reputation for being a good artist and writer, and became engaged, although the parents of the bride later broke off the engagement. After only a year at the university, Poe could no longer afford to stay on and was expelled. During his stay at the university, the young man had struggled to afford his tuition, even resorting to gambling in order to raise money. This, naturally, led to a heavy debt, and when John Allan refused to help the young man, Poe enlisted with the army.

            Under the assumed name of Edgar A. Perry, Poe excelled in the army for a short while, and even managed to afford to enroll at West Point University in 1830. His stay, however, did not survive long, and when a collection of poems that Poe had had published with his own money failed to garner any notice from reader or critic, the author lost almost all of the money he had earned in the army. After being dishonorably discharged, the young poet moved in with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia. Poe became an editor for the Southern Literary Messenger in order to support his aunt and cousin, and soon had gained a reputation as a harsh and cruel critic. In the literary world, Poe became known as the "Tomahawk Man," but in his personal life, the struggling writer was a quiet and sincere young man who maintained good relations with both Mrs. Clemm and Virginia. In 1834, John Allan called Edgar to his dead bed in order to taunt him, and ended up leaving all of his property and money to everyone but Poe. Adding to his financial troubles was the prospect of his cousin Virginia, whom he had grown attached to, leaving Maria Clemm to go stay with other relatives. With both of these depressing loads on his back, Poe began to rely heavily on alcohol.

            In order to keep close to his beloved cousin, Poe proposed to her, and in 1839, the two were wed. Virginia was only twelve then, and her cousin Eddy was twenty-six. Despite the age gap, the two were quite in love, with Poe acting as both father and husband to Virginia. Although he struggled in the literary world, Poe was nevertheless close to his young bride. In order to support her, he tried getting jobs, but his alcoholism always got the better of him. So notorious became his reputation as the town drunk of Richmond that when Poe was seen stumbling around the outskirts of town wearing his vest inside out, any member of the town's populace was sure to avoid the moody drunk. During this period, Poe wrote some of his most popular stories, but he was still a relatively unknown writer. It was not until the publication of "The Raven" in 1845 that Poe achieved any small measure of success in the literary world, but by then, the author was a broken man. Virginia came down with tuberculosis in 1842, and died five years later in 1847. By the time he had written "The Raven," Poe had already witnessed his wife seem to recover, then become ill once again, and once more better in her condition, then grow ill again. Seeing Virginia's ups and downs hurt Poe, but what scarred him deeply inside was the fact that he could barely keep his young bride fed during her illness.

            Following the death of his wife, Poe wrote the poem "Annabel Lee." During the 1840s, he had written a good deal of his most famous short stories, including "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Pit and the Pendulum," but after Virginia died, Poe began writing less and less. In the years in between the death of his wife and his own, Poe carried on numerous affairs, including one with the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, and further sank into dependency on alcohol. In 1849, Poe proposed to Whitman in a cemetery, and she accepted. Their union, however, was not to be. At the age of forty, the sickly author had already attempted suicide once, was slipping into periods of insanity, and had become paranoid of strangers. His actions, therefore, were so spontaneous that when he disappeared during a trip to Richmond to visit Sarah, it should have come to a surprise to no one. His friends were sure he would resurface in a few days, and indeed, Poe turned up three days later. His mental state had crumbled, however, and he was ill. On October, 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died under mysterious circumstances. Of what happened to Poe during those three days is unknown. Some speculate that he was snatched up by thugs and shoved into different voting booths across town to vote. The fact that Poe was dressed in clothes that weren't his own would certainly collaborate with this theory, but the fact remains that there were few reports of these political kidnappings during the election in Baltimore. Would not there be more people forced to vote in a drunken state if Poe was? Another theory is that Poe was robbed, stripped of his clothes, and left to scrounge up whatever he could in a strange city.

            Poe's mysterious end, his life of suffering, and the dark themes he tackled in literature have given the man a strange and superstitious literary legacy. During the year before his death, Poe began reading his poems to public audiences, and during his last, a critic who happened to watch the sickened author observed that although Poe was ill, he was still obviously of considerable talent. The critic contended that the writer was stricken by a depraved genius that weighed heavily on a foundation of almost no talent. Harsh words, for sure, but not necessarily false. Despite the differing opinions in the literary world, the mystique of Edgar Allan Poe, whether one finds him overrated or not, is undeniable. The fact that every year since the centennial anniversary of his death in 1949, there has been an anonymous visitor to Poe's grave who has left three roses and a bottle of cognac in the night and promptly vanished, certainly doesn't harm the writer's reputation as a man of mystery. He is literature's enigma, whose short stories and poetry have cemented his place in history, and in the hearts of his readers.

Written by Cyanne Topaum

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