No writer has the ability to evoke a sense of horror and dread more effectively than Edgar Allan Poe, born on January 19,
1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe’s parents were actors. Their
brilliant and unstable son grew up to be a romantic poet, a master of
macabre tales, the originator of the modern detective story, and an
acute literary critic, editor, and journalist. Orphaned at age two, Poe
grew up in the Richmond, Virginia External
home of a childless couple, merchant John Allan and his wife Frances.
His foster parents treated him well, though Frances was Poe’s primary
source of affection. Allan paid for Poe’s education at schools in
England and in Virginia. Poe showed an early gift for language and
Allan enrolled him in the University of Virginia in February 1826.
Oh, horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly…and we are whirling
dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round the borders of a
gigantic amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the
darkness…But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny…we
are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool and amid a roaring,
and bellowing, and shrieking of ocean and of tempest, the ship is
quivering, oh God! and going down.
Edgar Allan Poe. Photo of daguerreotype by W.S. Hartshorn, 1848; C.T. Tatman,
c1904. Prints & Photograph Division[Richmond, Va. The Old Stone House (“Washington’s headquarters,” 1916 East Main Street)]. April 1865. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division [From the Poe MuseumExternal]Before the year was out, Poe, maintaining the lifestyle of a
Virginia gentleman of substance, had accumulated a debt of $2,000. Poe
angered his foster father—accusing him of providing inadequate
financial support for his university expenses. Allan paid Poe’s charges
to Charlottesville merchants, but refused to pay his gambling debts,
regarded at that time by young gentlemen as “debts of honor.” When Poe
returned to Richmond for Christmas, Allan refused to send him back to
the university. For two months the pair argued at home, culminating in a
huge fight in March 1827 that prompted Poe to move to Boston. In May,
Poe enlisted in the army under an assumed name. While training as a
soldier, he found time to write romantic poetry in the tradition of Lord
Byron. His first volume of poems was published in 1827 as Tamerlane and Other PoemsExternal, “By a Bostonian.” Allan and Poe were not in contact after Poe moved to Boston. Early
in 1829, however, Poe’s regimental commanding officer, acting as
intermediary, helped them reestablish communication. The death of Poe’s
foster mother on February 28, 1829, sealed Allan and Poe’s
reconciliation. Poe was discharged from the army in April 1829. In May he took up
residence in Baltimore with his grandmother Poe, and his aunt Maria
Clemm and her children. He supported himself by holding odd jobs. In
December 1829, a Baltimore publisher brought out Poe’s second volume of
poetry, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor PoemsExternal. Allan, who had resumed his financial support of Poe, assisted him in financing his entrance into the U.S. Military Academy.
Poe enrolled in the Academy on July 1, 1830. Within the year, Poe’s
academic career and his relations with Allan again ran aground. Poe
drank to excess and ran up debts at West Point. By this time, Allan,
who had remarried in October 1830, was more interested in starting a new
family than dealing with the ongoing problems of his foster son. He
again severed relations with Poe, this time permanently. [Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left]. Reproduction from daguerreotype; A.G. Learned, c1916. Prints & Photographs DivisionDuring the 1830s Poe’s writing began to attract notice. He published stories in the Philadelphia Courier, the Baltimore Sunday Visitor, and Godey’s Ladies Book. In 1835 he moved back to Richmond where he became editor and contributor to the Southern Literary Messenger. Shortly thereafter, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. Between 1835 and 1837, during his tenure with the Messenger,
Poe published more than one hundred reviews and editorials in a regular
literary column, and also brought out many new poems and stories. In
1838 he published his one full-length piece of fiction, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon PymExternal. “The Black Cat.” Illus. in Four illustrations for the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, drawn by Aubrey Beardsley. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone Company, 1901. Prints & Photographs DivisionFrom 1838 until 1844, Poe lived with his wife and mother-in-law in Philadelphia. During these productive years, he served as editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, which became Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, publishing incisive literary criticism and some of his finest fiction, including “The Pit and the Pendulum” External, The Tell-Tale Heart External, and “The Fall of the House of Usher” External. In 1840 Poe’s stories were published in two volumes as Tales of the Grotesque and ArabesqueExternal. The publication of “The Gold-Bug” External and “The Black Cat” External
in the summer of 1843 produced a literary sensation. He received even
wider acclaim with the publication of “The Raven” in 1845.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door — Only this, and nothing more.”
Mr. Henry Ludlowe in The Raven: The Love Story of Edgar Allan Poe, by George Hazelton. [Cincinnatti; New York]: U.S. Lithograph Co., Russell-Morgan Print, c1908. Posters: Performing Arts Posters. Prints & Photographs Division“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. Illus. in Four illustrations for the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, drawn by Aubrey Beardsley. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone Company, 1901. Prints & Photographs DivisionSimultaneous with his development of gothic themes of terror, Poe
experimented with the pleasure of logical analysis, which flowered in
the creation of a new type of literature. Poe called the new genre the
“tale of ratiocination.” The first story of this type, The Murders in the Rue MorgueExternal,
featured an apparently inexplicable crime and a step-by-step analysis
by the rational Frenchman Dupin, as narrated by his admiring and baffled
sidekick. From this formula, which proved to be amenable to endless
variations, arose the widely popular genre of the mystery novel and
detective story. In the spring of 1846, Poe and his wife, who had long been seriously ill, moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York.
Virginia Clemm Poe died there the following January. During the next
two years, Poe pursued a number of erratic romantic attachments with
unavailable women, drank heavily, and made himself ill. Increasingly incapacitated, Poe experienced bouts of delusion and
paranoia. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of
semiconsciousness at Gunner’s Hall tavern in Baltimore. First thinking
him to be intoxicated, physicians soon realized that his illness was of a
more serious nature. Poe died in delirium at Washington College
Hospital four days later. The official cause of death was reported by
the Baltimore Clipper as “congestion of the brain.” Poe’s romantic tales and poems had often involved the morbid dread of
loss of an idealized female love object. This theme seems to have
arisen from Poe’s grief over the early loss of his mother, followed by
the deaths of his friend’s mother, when he was fifteen years old, and of
his foster mother, when he was twenty. In the months before his own
death he had penned several versions of one of his most famous and
haunting poems on this theme. “Annabel Lee” was published in the Richmond Examiner, the New York Tribune, and the Southern Literary Messenger, along with Poe’s obituary notice.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride In her sepulchre there by the sea — In her tomb by the side of the sea.
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