# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond. She died on December 8th, 1811 at the age of 24, leaving behind her three children. Two-year-old Edgar was taken in by Richmond couple John and Frances Allan. Edgar was never officially adopted, a cause and result of constant tensions between him and his foster father. He did not take their last name, but instead he became Edgar Allan Poe. As a teenager Poe enjoyed the life of the elite upper-class.

In 1824, a young Edgar Allan Poe was a part of a junior honor color guard that escorted the Revolutionary War General Marquis de Lafayette around Richmond, Virginia. Lafayette and the color guard stopped at Richmond's Old Stone House to visit the Ege family, who had assisted in the American Revolution. Poe stood guard on the front steps of the house. 98 years later, the Old Stone House became the Poe Museum.

At the age of 17, Edgar traveled to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia (UVA). He left behind a fiancé, Elmira Royster, who promised to wait until after graduation to marry. Edgar almost immediately ran into trouble at UVA. Although he was a talented student, he had arrived at college with only $110 for tuition. UVA's tuition was three times that, so he decided to gamble to raise the rest of the funds. Instead, Edgar generated $2,000 worth of debt. After just a couple months at UVA, he returned to Richmond disappointed and continued to feud with his foster father. To make matters worse, Elmira had become engaged to someone else. While Edgar was off at UVA, Elmira's father had intercepted Edgar's letters and steered her in the direction of another man who promised to be a successful businessman and a respectable citizen, something Edgar could not promise.

Poe then moved to Boston. He didn't stay long, but during that time he published his first book of poetry "Tamerlane and Other Poems" under the pseudonym "A Bostonian." When Poe was 18 he joined the army under the name "Edgar Perry." Poe did exceptionally well in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant major in just two years. He then went to West Point, where once again he did well academically, but ran into financial issues. Poe was court marshalled for extreme dereliction of duty. He then moved to Baltimore.

In Baltimore Poe lived with several relatives, including his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia. Poe lived in Baltimore for four years, during which time he shifted from writing poetry to short stories. One publication that took special interest in him was the Southern Literary Messenger based in Richmond, Virginia. Poe published "Metzengerstein" which is considered his first horror story, and "Berenice" which was so graphic and terrifying that the magazine received multiple complaints from readers. Editor Thomas White offered Poe a job on the staff of the Messenger. Poe agreed and moved back to Richmond.

Soon after Poe joined the Southern Literary Messenger, he and White began to have issues, the root of which perhaps came from Poe's drinking. Poe invited his aunt and cousin, Maria and Virgina to live with him in Richmond. One year later, Poe and Virginia then got married. She was 13, he was 27. This is an unlikely pairing and there is much debate about the nature of their relationship. Poe often referred to Virginia as "sissy" (sister) and Maria as "Muddy" (mother). Although many people today presume their relationship was familial, we ultimately will never know what happened in their marriage behind closed doors. Virginia and Maria had a stabilizing effect on Poe. He seemed to be more responsible and happier during the years when they were with him.

In 1837 Poe left the Southern Literary Messenger and Richmond. Starting in 1838 while living in Philadelphia, he enjoyed his prime years of literature. Poe wrote "The Tell-Tale Heart," the "Masque of the Red Death," "The Black Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and more.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is particularly important because it was the first modern detective story. Poe was the first to write about an eccentric genius who solves mysterious crimes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cites Poe's character, C. Auguste Dupin, as the literary inspiration behind his character, Sherlock Holmes. Poe was also an early pioneer of science fiction. Interestingly, the majority of his stories are comedies.

Poe wrote in many genres, but his contribution to horror is what makes him famous today. Poe revolutionized the genre. He was one of the first to involve deep, intuitive, psychological horror. He often wrote stories where the true monster was the capacity for evil that is inside each person, and what happens when that evil is acted upon.

Poe's most famous piece is "The Raven." Once published, in the early months of 1845, this poem made him an overnight success.Before the publication, Poe was well known in literary circles, but because of "The Raven" Edgar Allan Poe became a household name. Although Poe only made around $15 from the publication of "The Raven," its international success created financial opportunities like taking on literary clients and giving lectures and recitations. Poe was the first American writer to live completely off of his earnings from writing. But for most of Poe's adulthood, he struggled to financially support himself and his family.

Unfortunately, by this time, his wife Virginia began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis. She was sick for several years and died in 1847 while the couple lived in New York. Virginia was 24 years old when she died. Poe never emotionally recovered from the death of his wife. It was evident that he relied on her for mental and emotional support. Poe began to drift back south towards the city of his childhood: Richmond.

Elmira Royster Shelton

While in Richmond, Poe rekindled his childhood romance with Elmira Royster Shelton, who was then a wealthy widow. At the dismay of her children, she and Poe once again became engaged in 1849. Poe planned to move permanently to Richmond to be with Elmira. He planned a trip to New York to bring Maria (his mother-in-law) back to Richmond. He was also planning to see a client in Philadelphia on the way up the coast.

Poe's last day in Richmond was on September 26th, 1849. Elmira was worried about his health. After his bout of cholera, his health had been quite fragile. She encouraged Poe to visit his doctor who is also a friend. Poe did, but it was primarily a social visit. He had a late meal at Sadler's Restaurant. And at 4am on September 27th, 1849, Poe boarded a ship headed for Baltimore. From September 27th until October 3rd, there is no record of his whereabouts.

On October 3rd, an election day, Poe was found delirious in a tavern called Gunner's Hall in Baltimore. He appeared drunk, wearing someone else's clothes and was taken to Washington University Hospital. For the next four days he was in and out of consciousness, sometimes being alert, sometimes screaming at nothing and no one.

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7th, 1849. The doctor labeled his cause of death as "phrenitis" (inflammation of the brain) which was commonly used when the true cause of death was unknown. Because of these mysterious circumstances, and the persona of Poe, there is much speculation about the true manner of his death. There are over 26 published theories on his demise, so far.

Poe's death, although untimely and unfortunate, was quite the fitting end for a writer who created stories of true horror and mystery. Even in death, Edgar Allan Poe created a mystery that would live on forever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Poe was a literary pioneer, inventing modern detective fiction and contributing to science fiction.
Library of Congress

Pioneering author, editor, poet, literary critic, husband, son...Edgar Allan Poe lived just to the age of 40 but his works continue to captivate readers around the globe today.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. Both of his parents were actors. His mother, the much admired Elizabeth Arnold Poe was a talented actress. His father, David Poe was considered less talented. The Poes performed at theaters throughout the Eastern seaboard, from Boston to Virginia. In 1811, Elizabeth Poe died of tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia, leaving orphaned Edgar, his infant sister Rosalie, and his older brother Henry. David Poe, apparently had abandoned his wife and children earlier and was not present when she died.

The three children were separated and raised by different families. Edgar was taken in by the successful Richmond merchant John Allan, and his frail wife Frances. The Allans had no children of their own. They raised Edgar as part of the family and gave him their middle name, but never legally adopted him.

In 1815, Edgar traveled with the Allans to England and Scotland, where John Allan planned to expand his tobacco business. Edgar attended boarding schools throughout the five years the family lived overseas. After John Allan's business venture failed, he moved the family back to Richmond, Virginia in 1820.

From University of Virginia to West Point

Edgar continued his studies in Richmond. He entered the University of Virginia in 1826 at the age of 17. During the year he attended the university, Edgar excelled in his studies of Latin and French. He was unable to complete his studies at the university because Allan refused to pay debts Edgar had incurred during the school year. Allan and Edgar quarreled over the debts, of which a large portion was incurred from gambling.

Shortly after his quarrel with his foster father, Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond for Boston where he hoped to pursue a literary career. His first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems was published there. Unable to support himself, and receiving little assistance from his foster father, Poe enlisted as a private in the US Army on May 26, 1827 for a five year term. He entered under an assumed name and lied about his age, claiming to be 22 years old when he was only 18. Poe was assigned to Battery H of the First Artillery at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor. On October 31, 1827 Battery H was ordered to Fort Moultrie to protect Charleston Harbor. He sailed on the Brigantine Waltham, arriving for duty in Charleston on November 18.

At Fort Moultrie, Poe was promoted to artificer, the rank of a noncommissioned officer or enlisted man who had a mechanical specialty. On December 11, 1828, Poe's battery sailed for duty at Fortress Monroe, Virginia where he attained the rank of Sergeant-Major, the highest possible rank for a non-commissioned officer. His quick progress up the ranks can be attributed to his education, high social standing, and competence. Despite his accomplishments, Poe left military service in April 1829 and hired a substitute to complete his obligation.

A brief reconciliation between Poe and Allan occurred upon the death of Frances Allan in 1829. Allan assisted Poe in obtaining a discharge from the regular Army and an appointment as a cadet at the US Military Academy in West Point. Entering West Point in July 1830, Poe was again plagued by restlessness. One of his roommates described him as having "the appearance of being much older. He had a worn, weary, discontented look, not easily forgotten by those who were intimate with him." The financial hardship along with the realization that literature was his true vocation, led to Poe's decision to resign from the Academy. Allan, as Poe's guardian, refused to give him permission to resign. Unable to obtain permission to resign, Poe chose to neglect his duties and was court-martialed for "gross neglect of duty" and "disobedience of orders."

Editor and Author

After leaving West Point, Poe eventually moved to Baltimore where he lived with his impoverished Aunt Maria Poe Clemm and her young daughter, Virginia. Poe continued to write poetry and prose. In 1833, he won a $50 prize and attention for his short story "Ms. Found in a Bottle." The attention he gained led to a job offer as an editor for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe accepted the position and moved to Richmond in 1835. His aunt and cousin joined him the following year. Poe married his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia, shortly afterwards.

The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved to New York City in 1837 with the hope of Edgar finding work in the literary field. The city, as well as the rest of the country was in the midst of a depression caused by the financial "Panic of '37." Unable to find work, Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838. The six years he spent in Philadelphia proved to be his most productive, and perhaps the happiest years of his life. He worked as an editor and critic for one of the nation's largest magazines, Graham's Magazine. Some of his most famous stories were written in Philadelphia, including the "Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mask of the Red Death," and "Ligeia." Poe referred to South Carolina settings in several short stories, including "The Balloon-Hoax" and "The Oblong Box." By far his most popular story inspired by Sullivan's Island was "The Gold Bug," originally published in 1843. In 1842, his beloved wife became ill with tuberculosis. Her illness and the constant strain of financial problems, caused Poe to sink into deep bouts of depression.

Professional and Personal Loss

The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved to New York City in 1844. Poe continued to work as an editor and critic. He gained his greatest fame as a poet after his poem "The Raven" was published in 1845. In the same year, he achieved his lifelong dream of owning a literary journal. Unfortunately, the journal failed within a few months. The Poes and Mrs. Clemm moved outside of New York City to a small cottage in 1846. Virginia died of tuberculosis the following year.

Death

For the next two years Poe continued to write poetry, short stories, criticism and plan for his own literary journal. After a successful lecture tour in the South and an extended visit in Richmond, Poe seemed to be finally recovering from the loss of Virginia, and making plans for the future. On his way back to New York City, Poe stopped in Baltimore where he died of "acute congestion of the brain." The day was October 7, 1849; Edgar Allan Poe was 40 years old.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Edgar Allan Poe (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Despite financial hardships and family woes, Edgar Allan Poe published a wide range of works, including short stories, poetry, and literary criticism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Embedded Style Sheet
"Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), An Introduction to." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism Volume 211, Gale, 2009.
Known for his keen intellect and vivid, often macabre imagination, Edgar Allan Poe is regarded by many scholars as one of the most groundbreaking authors of early-nineteenth-century America. Although Poe is remembered by most readers as the author of such stories as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," critics recognize him for the versatility and range of his talents.

A number of commentators have credited Poe with inventing the modem detective story; indeed, many of his principal techniques, particularly his use of deductive reasoning to elucidate the complexities of criminal behavior, form the foundation of the crime genre. At the same time, Poe's in-depth explorations of the interior lives of his characters helped pave the way for psychological realism, inspiring a number of later fiction writers, among them Fyodor Dostoevsky. Poe's critical writings, notably those on the relationship between philosophical principles and artistic style, also influenced the aesthetic theories of Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and other members of the French symbolist movement.

In spite of his far-reaching impact, Poe has also had his share of detractors over the years: Henry James was intensely critical of Poe's work, while T. S. Eliot famously dismissed his writings as "pre-adolescent." The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a reevaluation of Poe's legacy, however, as modem critics and theorists began to recognize his profound effect on modem literature and thought.

Biographical Information

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, the second son of David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, both stage actors. The family lived in abject poverty and moved frequently during Poe's first years, during which time his parents pursued acting engagements in New York, Maryland, and Virginia. Poe's father abandoned the family when Poe was still a small child, and his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in December 1811. Shortly after his mother's death, Poe was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant, and his wife, Frances. In 1815 the young boy went with the Allans to Great Britain, living in Scotland and London for the next five years. After returning to Richmond in 1820, Poe attended private schools, where he excelled in literature, classics, and oratory; he also began to write poetry.

In spite of his academic accomplishments, Poe remained relatively isolated. Scholar Eric W. Carlson has argued that Poe's humble origins remained a source of shame throughout his life and that because of his background he never gained acceptance among Richmond's social elite. In 1826, Poe became a student at the University of Virginia, studying classical and modern languages. Although his adoptive father paid Poe's tuition and lodging, he refused him additional funds for books and other basic expenses. To cover his living costs, Poe turned to gambling, incurring massive debts that forced him to withdraw from the university. Unable to repair his fractured relationship with Allan, Poe moved to Boston and enlisted in the army. He published his first book of verse, Tamerlane and Other Poems: By a Bostonian (1827), around this time. A second poetry collection, Al Aaraaf Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, was published in 1829. A year later Poe, intent on launching a military career, enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point; financial difficulties continued to plague him, however, and he abandoned his training after only six months. His third collection of verse, Poems, By Edgar A. Poe, came out in 1831.

After living briefly in New York City, Poe settled in Baltimore, where he moved in with his aunt, Maria Clemm. In Baltimore, Poe began writing short stories, publishing several of them in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier in 1832. In 1833, his story "MS. Found in a Bottle" won first prize in a contest promoted by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Although the prize earned Poe $50, it ultimately did little to alleviate his financial struggles, and John Allan's death in 1834 failed to provide Poe with an adequate inheritance. Desperate for a steady income, Poe accepted an offer to become a staff writer and editor for the Southern Literary Messenger, a new magazine based in Richmond. In 1835 he moved to Richmond with his aunt and her 12-year-old daughter, Virginia Clemm. Poe married Virginia a year later, shortly before her 14th birthday.

According to most biographical accounts, Poe thrived during his tenure at the Messenger; he published more than 80 essays, poems, and reviews in the periodical, while gradually attracting a sizeable readership. In 1837, he resigned from his editorship, although he continued to contribute fiction and criticism to the magazine. For the next year Poe lived with his family in New York before relocating to Philadelphia in early 1838. During this period he published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), as well as several important short stories, including "Ligeia" (1838) and "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839). In 1839 he took a position as the editor and principal literary critic of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine; he was fired a year later, however, after attempting to launch his own rival magazine.

Poe's first book of short fiction, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, was published in 1840. Over the next few years Poe published two additional story collections, The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, No. 1. Containing the Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Man That Was Used Up (1843) and Tales by Edgar A. Poe (1845), as well as his most significant book of poetry, The Raven and Other Poems (1845). Virginia contracted tuberculosis during this time; she died in January 1847. Poe's own health began to deteriorate, his condition exacerbated by heavy alcohol abuse.

In the remaining two years of his life, Poe was romantically involved with a series of women and was briefly engaged to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, but their relationship ended abruptly in late 1848. That year saw the publication of Eureka: A Prose Poem, the final work published in Poe's lifetime. His struggle to earn a living and refrain from drinking continued to take its toll. He managed to place essays, stories, and poems in various magazines and delivered lectures on poetry. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. Although biographers speculate that his death was alcohol related, the exact cause remains unknown. A posthumous collection of prose writings, The Literati . . . Together with Marginalia, Suggestions, and Essays (1850), was published a year after his death.

Major Works

To modern commentators Poe remains best known for his short stories, almost all of which were collected in three volumes published during his lifetime: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, and Tales by Edgar A. Poe. Many scholars divide Poe's short fiction into two categories: horror tales and detective stories. Poe's horror tales typically revolve around characters who have reached states of extreme alienation, terror, and madness and often contain elements of the supernatural. In "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843), a murderer is plagued by the persistent echo of his victim's heartbeat, compelling him to confess his crime; "The Black Cat" (1843) features a protagonist who becomes obsessed with killing his beloved pet cat; the narrator of "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846), tormented by the "thousand injuries" inflicted upon him by an old rival, achieves his long-awaited vengeance by burying his victim alive in a brick tomb. The sense of menace in other stories is far more subtle. In "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), a revivified Egyptian mummy, speaking to a group of modern scientists, offers an ominous indictment of nineteenth-century democracy. The narrator of "Ligeia" (1838), distressed by the death of his first wife, imagines her soul's resurrection in the body of his second wife. "Ligeia" is also noteworthy in that it contains the poem "The Conqueror Worm," a dark vision of the power and inevitability of death.

Poe's detective stories concern the complex, sometimes misleading relationship between human reasoning and empirical reality. Characterized by Poe himself as tales of "ratiocination," these stories revolve around crimes so strange and inexplicable that they prove nearly impossible to solve. The best known of these works include "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1845). These three stories feature the character C. Auguste Dupin, an amateur sleuth whose powers of imagination and deductive reasoning enable him to recognize crucial details that elude more conventional police inspectors. A number of scholars have asserted that Dupin became the prototype of the modem fictional detective and served as the model for such characters as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

In addition to his fiction, Poe authored a number of important poems over the course of his career. Although his poems are not widely read today, several are still familiar to modem readers; among the most famous are "To Helen" (1831), "Lenore" (1843), and "The Raven" (1845). Poe's critical writings, in particular his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's story collction Twice-Told Tales, also remain noteworthy among scholars. The commentary, first published in April 1842, has played a pivotal role in the field of Hawthorne criticism. In the 1846 essay "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe undertakes an in-depth analysis of his own artistic methods. "The Poetic Principle," first delivered as a lecture in 1848 and later included in the posthumous volume The Literati, offers an invaluable exposition of Poe's aesthetic philosophy, notably the idea that the ultimate aim of art is art itself, independent of social or political contexts. This idea influenced European aesthetic theories of the late nineteenth century and became the foundation of the French symbolist movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Edgar Allan Poe: Themes & Literary Analysis of Stories and Poems

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Embedded Style Sheet "Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), An Introduction to." Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism Volume 211, Gale, 2009. Known for his keen intellect and vivid, often macabre imagination, Edgar Allan Poe is regarded by many scholars as one of the most groundbreaking authors of early-nineteenth-century America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Edgar Allan Poe And His Literary Legacy I Oxford Open Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe transformed the horror genre. He mastered the art of suspense and crafted melancholic, eerie atmospheres unlike any other.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond. She died on December 8th, 1811 at the age of 24, leaving behind her three children. Two-year-old Edgar was taken in by Richmond couple John and Frances Allan. Edgar was never officially adopted, a cause and result of constant tensions between him and his foster father. He did not take their last name, but instead he became Edgar Allan Poe. As a teenager Poe enjoyed the life of the elite upper-class.

In 1824, a young Edgar Allan Poe was a part of a junior honor color guard that escorted the Revolutionary War General Marquis de Lafayette around Richmond, Virginia. Lafayette and the color guard stopped at Richmond's Old Stone House to visit the Ege family, who had assisted in the American Revolution. Poe stood guard on the front steps of the house. 98 years later, the Old Stone House became the Poe Museum.

At the age of 17, Edgar traveled to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia (UVA). He left behind a fiancé, Elmira Royster, who promised to wait until after graduation to marry. Edgar almost immediately ran into trouble at UVA. Although he was a talented student, he had arrived at college with only $110 for tuition. UVA's tuition was three times that, so he decided to gamble to raise the rest of the funds. Instead, Edgar generated $2,000 worth of debt. After just a couple months at UVA, he returned to Richmond disappointed and continued to feud with his foster father. To make matters worse, Elmira had become engaged to someone else. While Edgar was off at UVA, Elmira's father had intercepted Edgar's letters and steered her in the direction of another man who promised to be a successful businessman and a respectable citizen, something Edgar could not promise.

Poe then moved to Boston. He didn't stay long, but during that time he published his first book of poetry "Tamerlane and Other Poems" under the pseudonym "A Bostonian." When Poe was 18 he joined the army under the name "Edgar Perry." Poe did exceptionally well in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant major in just two years. He then went to West Point, where once again he did well academically, but ran into financial issues. Poe was court marshalled for extreme dereliction of duty. He then moved to Baltimore.

In Baltimore Poe lived with several relatives, including his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia. Poe lived in Baltimore for four years, during which time he shifted from writing poetry to short stories. One publication that took special interest in him was the Southern Literary Messenger based in Richmond, Virginia. Poe published "Metzengerstein" which is considered his first horror story, and "Berenice" which was so graphic and terrifying that the magazine received multiple complaints from readers. Editor Thomas White offered Poe a job on the staff of the Messenger. Poe agreed and moved back to Richmond.

Soon after Poe joined the Southern Literary Messenger, he and White began to have issues, the root of which perhaps came from Poe's drinking. Poe invited his aunt and cousin, Maria and Virgina to live with him in Richmond. One year later, Poe and Virginia then got married. She was 13, he was 27. This is an unlikely pairing and there is much debate about the nature of their relationship. Poe often referred to Virginia as "sissy" (sister) and Maria as "Muddy" (mother). Although many people today presume their relationship was familial, we ultimately will never know what happened in their marriage behind closed doors. Virginia and Maria had a stabilizing effect on Poe. He seemed to be more responsible and happier during the years when they were with him.

In 1837 Poe left the Southern Literary Messenger and Richmond. Starting in 1838 while living in Philadelphia, he enjoyed his prime years of literature. Poe wrote "The Tell-Tale Heart," the "Masque of the Red Death," "The Black Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and more.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is particularly important because it was the first modern detective story. Poe was the first to write about an eccentric genius who solves mysterious crimes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cites Poe's character, C. Auguste Dupin, as the literary inspiration behind his character, Sherlock Holmes. Poe was also an early pioneer of science fiction. Interestingly, the majority of his stories are comedies.

Poe wrote in many genres, but his contribution to horror is what makes him famous today. Poe revolutionized the genre. He was one of the first to involve deep, intuitive, psychological horror. He often wrote stories where the true monster was the capacity for evil that is inside each person, and what happens when that evil is acted upon.

Poe's most famous piece is "The Raven." Once published, in the early months of 1845, this poem made him an overnight success.Before the publication, Poe was well known in literary circles, but because of "The Raven" Edgar Allan Poe became a household name. Although Poe only made around $15 from the publication of "The Raven," its international success created financial opportunities like taking on literary clients and giving lectures and recitations. Poe was the first American writer to live completely off of his earnings from writing. But for most of Poe's adulthood, he struggled to financially support himself and his family.

Unfortunately, by this time, his wife Virginia began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis. She was sick for several years and died in 1847 while the couple lived in New York. Virginia was 24 years old when she died. Poe never emotionally recovered from the death of his wife. It was evident that he relied on her for mental and emotional support. Poe began to drift back south towards the city of his childhood: Richmond.

Elmira Royster Shelton

While in Richmond, Poe rekindled his childhood romance with Elmira Royster Shelton, who was then a wealthy widow. At the dismay of her children, she and Poe once again became engaged in 1849. Poe planned to move permanently to Richmond to be with Elmira. He planned a trip to New York to bring Maria (his mother-in-law) back to Richmond. He was also planning to see a client in Philadelphia on the way up the coast.

Poe's last day in Richmond was on September 26th, 1849. Elmira was worried about his health. After his bout of cholera, his health had been quite fragile. She encouraged Poe to visit his doctor who is also a friend. Poe did, but it was primarily a social visit. He had a late meal at Sadler's Restaurant. And at 4am on September 27th, 1849, Poe boarded a ship headed for Baltimore. From September 27th until October 3rd, there is no record of his whereabouts.

On October 3rd, an election day, Poe was found delirious in a tavern called Gunner's Hall in Baltimore. He appeared drunk, wearing someone else's clothes and was taken to Washington University Hospital. For the next four days he was in and out of consciousness, sometimes being alert, sometimes screaming at nothing and no one.

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7th, 1849. The doctor labeled his cause of death as "phrenitis" (inflammation of the brain) which was commonly used when the true cause of death was unknown. Because of these mysterious circumstances, and the persona of Poe, there is much speculation about the true manner of his death. There are over 26 published theories on his demise, so far.

Poe's death, although untimely and unfortunate, was quite the fitting end for a writer who created stories of true horror and mystery. Even in death, Edgar Allan Poe created a mystery that would live on forever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe - Born in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe had a profound impact on American and international literature as an editor, poet, and critic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Edgar Allan Poe And His Literary Legacy I Oxford Open Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe transformed the horror genre. He mastered the art of suspense and crafted melancholic, eerie atmospheres unlike any other.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond. She died on December 8th, 1811 at the age of 24, leaving behind her three children. Two-year-old Edgar was taken in by Richmond couple John and Frances Allan. Edgar was never officially adopted, a cause and result of constant tensions between him and his foster father. He did not take their last name, but instead he became Edgar Allan Poe. As a teenager Poe enjoyed the life of the elite upper-class.

In 1824, a young Edgar Allan Poe was a part of a junior honor color guard that escorted the Revolutionary War General Marquis de Lafayette around Richmond, Virginia. Lafayette and the color guard stopped at Richmond's Old Stone House to visit the Ege family, who had assisted in the American Revolution. Poe stood guard on the front steps of the house. 98 years later, the Old Stone House became the Poe Museum.

At the age of 17, Edgar traveled to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia (UVA). He left behind a fiancé, Elmira Royster, who promised to wait until after graduation to marry. Edgar almost immediately ran into trouble at UVA. Although he was a talented student, he had arrived at college with only $110 for tuition. UVA's tuition was three times that, so he decided to gamble to raise the rest of the funds. Instead, Edgar generated $2,000 worth of debt. After just a couple months at UVA, he returned to Richmond disappointed and continued to feud with his foster father. To make matters worse, Elmira had become engaged to someone else. While Edgar was off at UVA, Elmira's father had intercepted Edgar's letters and steered her in the direction of another man who promised to be a successful businessman and a respectable citizen, something Edgar could not promise.

Poe then moved to Boston. He didn't stay long, but during that time he published his first book of poetry "Tamerlane and Other Poems" under the pseudonym "A Bostonian." When Poe was 18 he joined the army under the name "Edgar Perry." Poe did exceptionally well in the army, rising to the rank of sergeant major in just two years. He then went to West Point, where once again he did well academically, but ran into financial issues. Poe was court marshalled for extreme dereliction of duty. He then moved to Baltimore.

In Baltimore Poe lived with several relatives, including his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia. Poe lived in Baltimore for four years, during which time he shifted from writing poetry to short stories. One publication that took special interest in him was the Southern Literary Messenger based in Richmond, Virginia. Poe published "Metzengerstein" which is considered his first horror story, and "Berenice" which was so graphic and terrifying that the magazine received multiple complaints from readers. Editor Thomas White offered Poe a job on the staff of the Messenger. Poe agreed and moved back to Richmond.

Soon after Poe joined the Southern Literary Messenger, he and White began to have issues, the root of which perhaps came from Poe's drinking. Poe invited his aunt and cousin, Maria and Virgina to live with him in Richmond. One year later, Poe and Virginia then got married. She was 13, he was 27. This is an unlikely pairing and there is much debate about the nature of their relationship. Poe often referred to Virginia as "sissy" (sister) and Maria as "Muddy" (mother). Although many people today presume their relationship was familial, we ultimately will never know what happened in their marriage behind closed doors. Virginia and Maria had a stabilizing effect on Poe. He seemed to be more responsible and happier during the years when they were with him.

In 1837 Poe left the Southern Literary Messenger and Richmond. Starting in 1838 while living in Philadelphia, he enjoyed his prime years of literature. Poe wrote "The Tell-Tale Heart," the "Masque of the Red Death," "The Black Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and more.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is particularly important because it was the first modern detective story. Poe was the first to write about an eccentric genius who solves mysterious crimes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cites Poe's character, C. Auguste Dupin, as the literary inspiration behind his character, Sherlock Holmes. Poe was also an early pioneer of science fiction. Interestingly, the majority of his stories are comedies.

Poe wrote in many genres, but his contribution to horror is what makes him famous today. Poe revolutionized the genre. He was one of the first to involve deep, intuitive, psychological horror. He often wrote stories where the true monster was the capacity for evil that is inside each person, and what happens when that evil is acted upon.

Poe's most famous piece is "The Raven." Once published, in the early months of 1845, this poem made him an overnight success.Before the publication, Poe was well known in literary circles, but because of "The Raven" Edgar Allan Poe became a household name. Although Poe only made around $15 from the publication of "The Raven," its international success created financial opportunities like taking on literary clients and giving lectures and recitations. Poe was the first American writer to live completely off of his earnings from writing. But for most of Poe's adulthood, he struggled to financially support himself and his family.

Unfortunately, by this time, his wife Virginia began exhibiting symptoms of tuberculosis. She was sick for several years and died in 1847 while the couple lived in New York. Virginia was 24 years old when she died. Poe never emotionally recovered from the death of his wife. It was evident that he relied on her for mental and emotional support. Poe began to drift back south towards the city of his childhood: Richmond.

Elmira Royster Shelton

While in Richmond, Poe rekindled his childhood romance with Elmira Royster Shelton, who was then a wealthy widow. At the dismay of her children, she and Poe once again became engaged in 1849. Poe planned to move permanently to Richmond to be with Elmira. He planned a trip to New York to bring Maria (his mother-in-law) back to Richmond. He was also planning to see a client in Philadelphia on the way up the coast.

Poe's last day in Richmond was on September 26th, 1849. Elmira was worried about his health. After his bout of cholera, his health had been quite fragile. She encouraged Poe to visit his doctor who is also a friend. Poe did, but it was primarily a social visit. He had a late meal at Sadler's Restaurant. And at 4am on September 27th, 1849, Poe boarded a ship headed for Baltimore. From September 27th until October 3rd, there is no record of his whereabouts.

On October 3rd, an election day, Poe was found delirious in a tavern called Gunner's Hall in Baltimore. He appeared drunk, wearing someone else's clothes and was taken to Washington University Hospital. For the next four days he was in and out of consciousness, sometimes being alert, sometimes screaming at nothing and no one.

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7th, 1849. The doctor labeled his cause of death as "phrenitis" (inflammation of the brain) which was commonly used when the true cause of death was unknown. Because of these mysterious circumstances, and the persona of Poe, there is much speculation about the true manner of his death. There are over 26 published theories on his demise, so far.

Poe's death, although untimely and unfortunate, was quite the fitting end for a writer who created stories of true horror and mystery. Even in death, Edgar Allan Poe created a mystery that would live on forever.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 to traveling actors Eliza and David Poe. When Edgar was a baby, David abandoned the family, leaving Eliza to support three young children. In a devastating turn, Eliza contracted tuberculosis and spent the last few months of her life in Richmond.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edgar Allan Poe's stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story, Poe was also the principal forerunner of the "art for art's sake" movement in 19th-century European literature. Whereas earlier critics predominantly concerned themselves with moral or ideological generalities, Poe focused his criticism on the specifics of style and construction that contributed to a work's effectiveness or failure. In his own work, he demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe's poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.

Poe's father and mother were professional actors. At the time of his birth in 1809, they were members of a repertory company in Boston. Before Poe was three years old both of his parents died, and he was raised in the home of John Allan, a prosperous exporter from Richmond, Virginia, who never legally adopted his foster son. As a boy, Poe attended the best schools available, and was admitted to the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1825. While there he distinguished himself academically but was forced to leave after less than a year because of bad debts and inadequate financial support from Allan. Poe's relationship with Allan disintegrated upon his return to Richmond in 1827, and soon after Poe left for Boston, where he enlisted in the army and also published his first poetry collection, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. The volume went unnoticed by readers and reviewers, and a second collection, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, received only slightly more attention when it appeared in 1829. That same year Poe was honorably discharged from the army, having attained the rank of regimental sergeant major, and was then admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. However, because Allan would neither provide his foster son with sufficient funds to maintain himself as a cadet nor give the consent necessary to resign from the Academy, Poe gained a dismissal by ignoring his duties and violating regulations. He subsequently went to New York City, where Poems, his third collection of verse, was published in 1831, and then to Baltimore, where he lived at the home of his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm.

Over the next few years Poe's first short stories appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and his "MS. Found in a Bottle" won a cash prize for best story in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Nevertheless, Poe was still not earning enough to live independently, nor did Allan's death in 1834 provide him with an inheritance. The following year, however, his financial problems were temporarily alleviated when he accepted an editorship at The Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, bringing with him his aunt and his 12-year-old cousin Virginia, whom he married in 1836. The Southern Literary Messenger was the first of several journals Poe would direct over the next 10 years and through which he rose to prominence as a leading man of letters in America. Poe made himself known not only as a superlative author of poetry and fiction, but also as a literary critic whose level of imagination and insight had hitherto been unapproached in American literature. While Poe's writings gained attention in the late 1830s and early 1840s, the profits from his work remained meager, and he supported himself by editing Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. After his wife's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe became involved in a number of romantic affairs. It was while he prepared for his second marriage that Poe, for reasons unknown, arrived in Baltimore in late September of 1849. On October 3, he was discovered in a state of semi-consciousness; he died four days later without regaining the necessary lucidity to explain what had happened during the last days of his life.

Poe's most conspicuous contribution to world literature derives from the analytical method he practiced both as a creative author and as a critic of the works of his contemporaries. His self-declared intention was to formulate strictly artistic ideals in a milieu that he thought overly concerned with the utilitarian value of literature, a tendency he termed the "heresy of the Didactic." While Poe's position includes the chief requisites of pure aestheticism, his emphasis on literary formalism was directly linked to his philosophical ideals: through the calculated use of language one may express, though always imperfectly, a vision of truth and the essential condition of human existence. Poe's theory of literary creation is noted for two central points: first, a work must create a unity of effect on the reader to be considered successful; second, the production of this single effect should not be left to the hazards of accident or inspiration, but should to the minutest detail of style and subject be the result of rational deliberation on the part of the author. In poetry, this single effect must arouse the reader's sense of beauty, an ideal that Poe closely associated with sadness, strangeness, and loss; in prose, the effect should be one revelatory of some truth, as in "tales of ratiocination" or works evoking "terror, or passion, or horror."

Aside from a common theoretical basis, there is a psychological intensity that is characteristic of Poe's writings, especially the tales of horror that comprise his best and best-known works. These stories-which include "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Tell-Tale Heart"-are often told by a first-person narrator, and through this voice Poe probes the workings of a character's psyche. This technique foreshadows the psychological explorations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the school of psychological realism. In his Gothic tales, Poe also employed an essentially symbolic, almost allegorical method which gives such works as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "Ligeia" an enigmatic quality that accounts for their enduring interest and links them with the symbolical works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. The influence of Poe's tales may be seen in the work of later writers, including Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft, who belong to a distinct tradition of horror literature initiated by Poe. In addition to his achievement as creator of the modern horror tale, Poe is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story. In such works as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall" and "Von Kempelen and His Discovery," Poe took advantage of the fascination for science and technology that emerged in the early 19th century to produce speculative and fantastic narratives which anticipate a type of literature that did not become widely practiced until the 20th century. Similarly, Poe's three tales of ratiocination-"The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter," and "The Mystery of Marie Roget"-are recognized as the models which established the major characters and literary conventions of detective fiction, specifically the amateur sleuth who solves a crime that has confounded the authorities and whose feats of deductive reasoning are documented by an admiring associate. Just as Poe influenced many succeeding authors and is regarded as an ancestor of such major literary movements as Symbolism and Surrealism, he was also influenced by earlier literary figures and movements. In his use of the demonic and the grotesque, Poe evidenced the impact of the stories of E.T.A. Hoffman and the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, while the despair and melancholy in much of his writing reflects an affinity with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. It was Poe's particular genius that in his work he gave consummate artistic form both to his personal obsessions and those of previous literary generations, at the same time creating new forms which provided a means of expression for future artists.

While Poe is most often remembered for his short fiction, his first love as a writer was poetry, which he began writing during his adolescence. His early verse reflects the influence of such English romantics as Lord Byron, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, yet foreshadows his later poetry which demonstrates a subjective outlook and surreal, mystic vision. "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" exemplify Poe's evolution from the portrayal of Byronic heroes to the depiction of journeys within his own imagination and subconscious. The former piece, reminiscent of Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," recounts the life and adventures of a 14th-century Mongol conqueror; the latter poem portrays a dreamworld where neither good nor evil permanently reside and where absolute beauty can be directly discerned. In other poems-" To Helen," "Lenore," and " The Raven" in particular-Poe investigates the loss of ideal beauty and the difficulty in regaining it. These pieces are usually narrated by a young man who laments the untimely death of his beloved. "To Helen" is a three stanza lyric that has been called one of the most beautiful love poems in the English language. The subject of the work is a woman who becomes, in the eyes of the narrator, a personification of the classical beauty of ancient Greece and Rome. "Lenore" presents ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond earthly boundaries. In "The Raven," Poe successfully unites his philosophical and aesthetic ideals. In this psychological piece, a young scholar is emotionally tormented by a raven's ominous repetition of "Nevermore" in answer to his question about the probability of an afterlife with his deceased lover. Charles Baudelaire noted in his introduction to the French edition of "The Raven": "It is indeed the poem of the sleeplessness of despair; it lacks nothing: neither the fever of ideas, nor the violence of colors, nor sickly reasoning, nor drivelling terror, nor even the bizarre gaiety of suffering which makes it more terrible." Poe also wrote poems that were intended to be read aloud. Experimenting with combinations of sound and rhythm, he employed such technical devices as repetition, parallelism, internal rhyme, alliteration, and assonance to produce works that are unique in American poetry for their haunting, musical quality. In "The Bells," for example, the repetition of the word "bells" in various structures accentuates the unique tonality of the different types of bells described in the poem.

While his works were not conspicuously acclaimed during his lifetime, Poe did earn due respect as a gifted fiction writer, poet, and man of letters, and occasionally he achieved a measure of popular success, especially following the appearance of " The Raven." After his death, however, the history of his critical reception becomes one of dramatically uneven judgments and interpretations. This state of affairs was initiated by Poe's one-time friend and literary executor R.W. Griswold, who, in a libelous obituary notice in the New York Tribune bearing the byline "Ludwig," attributed the depravity and psychological aberrations of many of the characters in Poe's fiction to Poe himself. In retrospect, Griswold's vilifications seem ultimately to have elicited as much sympathy as censure with respect to Poe and his work, leading subsequent biographers of the late 19th century to defend, sometimes too devotedly, Poe's name. It was not until the 1941 biography by A.H. Quinn that a balanced view was provided of Poe, his work, and the relationship between the author's life and his imagination. Nevertheless, the identification of Poe with the murderers and madmen of his works survived and flourished in the 20th century, most prominently in the form of psychoanalytical studies such as those of Marie Bonaparte and Joseph Wood Krutch. Added to the controversy over the sanity, or at best the maturity of Poe (Paul Elmer More called him "the poet of unripe boys and unsound men"), was the question of the value of Poe's works as serious literature. At the forefront of Poe's detractors were such eminent figures as Henry James, Aldous Huxley, and T.S. Eliot, who dismissed Poe's works as juvenile, vulgar, and artistically debased; in contrast, these same works have been judged to be of the highest literary merit by such writers as Bernard Shaw and William Carlos Williams. Complementing Poe's erratic reputation among English and American critics is the more stable, and generally more elevated opinion of critics elsewhere in the world, particularly in France. Following the extensive translations and commentaries of Charles Baudelaire in the 1850s, Poe's works were received with a peculiar esteem by French writers, most profoundly those associated with the late 19th-century movement of Symbolism, who admired Poe's transcendent aspirations as a poet; the 20th-century movement of Surrealism, which valued Poe's bizarre and apparently unruled imagination; and such figures as Paul Valéry, who found in Poe's theories and thought an ideal of supreme rationalism. In other countries, Poe's works have enjoyed a similar regard, and numerous studies have been written tracing the influence of the American author on the international literary scene, especially in Russia, Japan, Scandinavia, and Latin America.

Today, Poe is recognized as one of the foremost progenitors of modern literature, both in its popular forms, such as horror and detective fiction, and in its more complex and self-conscious forms, which represent the essential artistic manner of the 20th century. In contrast to earlier critics who viewed the man and his works as one, criticism of the past 25 years has developed a view of Poe as a detached artist who was more concerned with displaying his virtuosity than with expressing his soul, and who maintained an ironic rather than an autobiographical relationship to his writings. While at one time critics such as Yvor Winters wished to remove Poe from literary history, his works remain integral to any conception of modernism in world literature. Herbert Marshall McLuhan wrote in an essay entitled "Edgar Poe's Tradition": "While the New England dons primly turned the pages of Plato and Buddha beside a tea-cozy, and while Browning and Tennyson were creating a parochial fog for the English mind to relax in, Poe never lost contact with the terrible pathos of his time. Coevally with Baudelaire, and long before Conrad and Eliot, he explored the heart of darkness."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe's stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edgar Allan Poe's stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story, Poe was also the principal forerunner of the "art for art's sake" movement in 19th-century European literature. Whereas earlier critics predominantly concerned themselves with moral or ideological generalities, Poe focused his criticism on the specifics of style and construction that contributed to a work's effectiveness or failure. In his own work, he demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe's poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature.

Poe's father and mother were professional actors. At the time of his birth in 1809, they were members of a repertory company in Boston. Before Poe was three years old both of his parents died, and he was raised in the home of John Allan, a prosperous exporter from Richmond, Virginia, who never legally adopted his foster son. As a boy, Poe attended the best schools available, and was admitted to the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1825. While there he distinguished himself academically but was forced to leave after less than a year because of bad debts and inadequate financial support from Allan. Poe's relationship with Allan disintegrated upon his return to Richmond in 1827, and soon after Poe left for Boston, where he enlisted in the army and also published his first poetry collection, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. The volume went unnoticed by readers and reviewers, and a second collection, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, received only slightly more attention when it appeared in 1829. That same year Poe was honorably discharged from the army, having attained the rank of regimental sergeant major, and was then admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. However, because Allan would neither provide his foster son with sufficient funds to maintain himself as a cadet nor give the consent necessary to resign from the Academy, Poe gained a dismissal by ignoring his duties and violating regulations. He subsequently went to New York City, where Poems, his third collection of verse, was published in 1831, and then to Baltimore, where he lived at the home of his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm.

Over the next few years Poe's first short stories appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and his "MS. Found in a Bottle" won a cash prize for best story in the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Nevertheless, Poe was still not earning enough to live independently, nor did Allan's death in 1834 provide him with an inheritance. The following year, however, his financial problems were temporarily alleviated when he accepted an editorship at The Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, bringing with him his aunt and his 12-year-old cousin Virginia, whom he married in 1836. The Southern Literary Messenger was the first of several journals Poe would direct over the next 10 years and through which he rose to prominence as a leading man of letters in America. Poe made himself known not only as a superlative author of poetry and fiction, but also as a literary critic whose level of imagination and insight had hitherto been unapproached in American literature. While Poe's writings gained attention in the late 1830s and early 1840s, the profits from his work remained meager, and he supported himself by editing Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia and the Broadway Journal in New York City. After his wife's death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe became involved in a number of romantic affairs. It was while he prepared for his second marriage that Poe, for reasons unknown, arrived in Baltimore in late September of 1849. On October 3, he was discovered in a state of semi-consciousness; he died four days later without regaining the necessary lucidity to explain what had happened during the last days of his life.

Poe's most conspicuous contribution to world literature derives from the analytical method he practiced both as a creative author and as a critic of the works of his contemporaries. His self-declared intention was to formulate strictly artistic ideals in a milieu that he thought overly concerned with the utilitarian value of literature, a tendency he termed the "heresy of the Didactic." While Poe's position includes the chief requisites of pure aestheticism, his emphasis on literary formalism was directly linked to his philosophical ideals: through the calculated use of language one may express, though always imperfectly, a vision of truth and the essential condition of human existence. Poe's theory of literary creation is noted for two central points: first, a work must create a unity of effect on the reader to be considered successful; second, the production of this single effect should not be left to the hazards of accident or inspiration, but should to the minutest detail of style and subject be the result of rational deliberation on the part of the author. In poetry, this single effect must arouse the reader's sense of beauty, an ideal that Poe closely associated with sadness, strangeness, and loss; in prose, the effect should be one revelatory of some truth, as in "tales of ratiocination" or works evoking "terror, or passion, or horror."

Aside from a common theoretical basis, there is a psychological intensity that is characteristic of Poe's writings, especially the tales of horror that comprise his best and best-known works. These stories-which include "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Tell-Tale Heart"-are often told by a first-person narrator, and through this voice Poe probes the workings of a character's psyche. This technique foreshadows the psychological explorations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the school of psychological realism. In his Gothic tales, Poe also employed an essentially symbolic, almost allegorical method which gives such works as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "Ligeia" an enigmatic quality that accounts for their enduring interest and links them with the symbolical works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. The influence of Poe's tales may be seen in the work of later writers, including Ambrose Bierce and H.P. Lovecraft, who belong to a distinct tradition of horror literature initiated by Poe. In addition to his achievement as creator of the modern horror tale, Poe is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story. In such works as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall" and "Von Kempelen and His Discovery," Poe took advantage of the fascination for science and technology that emerged in the early 19th century to produce speculative and fantastic narratives which anticipate a type of literature that did not become widely practiced until the 20th century. Similarly, Poe's three tales of ratiocination-"The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter," and "The Mystery of Marie Roget"-are recognized as the models which established the major characters and literary conventions of detective fiction, specifically the amateur sleuth who solves a crime that has confounded the authorities and whose feats of deductive reasoning are documented by an admiring associate. Just as Poe influenced many succeeding authors and is regarded as an ancestor of such major literary movements as Symbolism and Surrealism, he was also influenced by earlier literary figures and movements. In his use of the demonic and the grotesque, Poe evidenced the impact of the stories of E.T.A. Hoffman and the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, while the despair and melancholy in much of his writing reflects an affinity with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. It was Poe's particular genius that in his work he gave consummate artistic form both to his personal obsessions and those of previous literary generations, at the same time creating new forms which provided a means of expression for future artists.

While Poe is most often remembered for his short fiction, his first love as a writer was poetry, which he began writing during his adolescence. His early verse reflects the influence of such English romantics as Lord Byron, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, yet foreshadows his later poetry which demonstrates a subjective outlook and surreal, mystic vision. "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" exemplify Poe's evolution from the portrayal of Byronic heroes to the depiction of journeys within his own imagination and subconscious. The former piece, reminiscent of Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," recounts the life and adventures of a 14th-century Mongol conqueror; the latter poem portrays a dreamworld where neither good nor evil permanently reside and where absolute beauty can be directly discerned. In other poems-" To Helen," "Lenore," and " The Raven" in particular-Poe investigates the loss of ideal beauty and the difficulty in regaining it. These pieces are usually narrated by a young man who laments the untimely death of his beloved. "To Helen" is a three stanza lyric that has been called one of the most beautiful love poems in the English language. The subject of the work is a woman who becomes, in the eyes of the narrator, a personification of the classical beauty of ancient Greece and Rome. "Lenore" presents ways in which the dead are best remembered, either by mourning or celebrating life beyond earthly boundaries. In "The Raven," Poe successfully unites his philosophical and aesthetic ideals. In this psychological piece, a young scholar is emotionally tormented by a raven's ominous repetition of "Nevermore" in answer to his question about the probability of an afterlife with his deceased lover. Charles Baudelaire noted in his introduction to the French edition of "The Raven": "It is indeed the poem of the sleeplessness of despair; it lacks nothing: neither the fever of ideas, nor the violence of colors, nor sickly reasoning, nor drivelling terror, nor even the bizarre gaiety of suffering which makes it more terrible." Poe also wrote poems that were intended to be read aloud. Experimenting with combinations of sound and rhythm, he employed such technical devices as repetition, parallelism, internal rhyme, alliteration, and assonance to produce works that are unique in American poetry for their haunting, musical quality. In "The Bells," for example, the repetition of the word "bells" in various structures accentuates the unique tonality of the different types of bells described in the poem.

While his works were not conspicuously acclaimed during his lifetime, Poe did earn due respect as a gifted fiction writer, poet, and man of letters, and occasionally he achieved a measure of popular success, especially following the appearance of " The Raven." After his death, however, the history of his critical reception becomes one of dramatically uneven judgments and interpretations. This state of affairs was initiated by Poe's one-time friend and literary executor R.W. Griswold, who, in a libelous obituary notice in the New York Tribune bearing the byline "Ludwig," attributed the depravity and psychological aberrations of many of the characters in Poe's fiction to Poe himself. In retrospect, Griswold's vilifications seem ultimately to have elicited as much sympathy as censure with respect to Poe and his work, leading subsequent biographers of the late 19th century to defend, sometimes too devotedly, Poe's name. It was not until the 1941 biography by A.H. Quinn that a balanced view was provided of Poe, his work, and the relationship between the author's life and his imagination. Nevertheless, the identification of Poe with the murderers and madmen of his works survived and flourished in the 20th century, most prominently in the form of psychoanalytical studies such as those of Marie Bonaparte and Joseph Wood Krutch. Added to the controversy over the sanity, or at best the maturity of Poe (Paul Elmer More called him "the poet of unripe boys and unsound men"), was the question of the value of Poe's works as serious literature. At the forefront of Poe's detractors were such eminent figures as Henry James, Aldous Huxley, and T.S. Eliot, who dismissed Poe's works as juvenile, vulgar, and artistically debased; in contrast, these same works have been judged to be of the highest literary merit by such writers as Bernard Shaw and William Carlos Williams. Complementing Poe's erratic reputation among English and American critics is the more stable, and generally more elevated opinion of critics elsewhere in the world, particularly in France. Following the extensive translations and commentaries of Charles Baudelaire in the 1850s, Poe's works were received with a peculiar esteem by French writers, most profoundly those associated with the late 19th-century movement of Symbolism, who admired Poe's transcendent aspirations as a poet; the 20th-century movement of Surrealism, which valued Poe's bizarre and apparently unruled imagination; and such figures as Paul Valéry, who found in Poe's theories and thought an ideal of supreme rationalism. In other countries, Poe's works have enjoyed a similar regard, and numerous studies have been written tracing the influence of the American author on the international literary scene, especially in Russia, Japan, Scandinavia, and Latin America.

Today, Poe is recognized as one of the foremost progenitors of modern literature, both in its popular forms, such as horror and detective fiction, and in its more complex and self-conscious forms, which represent the essential artistic manner of the 20th century. In contrast to earlier critics who viewed the man and his works as one, criticism of the past 25 years has developed a view of Poe as a detached artist who was more concerned with displaying his virtuosity than with expressing his soul, and who maintained an ironic rather than an autobiographical relationship to his writings. While at one time critics such as Yvor Winters wished to remove Poe from literary history, his works remain integral to any conception of modernism in world literature. Herbert Marshall McLuhan wrote in an essay entitled "Edgar Poe's Tradition": "While the New England dons primly turned the pages of Plato and Buddha beside a tea-cozy, and while Browning and Tennyson were creating a parochial fog for the English mind to relax in, Poe never lost contact with the terrible pathos of his time. Coevally with Baudelaire, and long before Conrad and Eliot, he explored the heart of darkness."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe's stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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 Poems , "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 Poems .

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 Division

During 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 Pym .

"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 Division

From 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 Arabesque . 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."
"The Raven." External In The Raven and Other Poems (1845), by Edgar Allan Poe

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 Division

Simultaneous 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 Morgue , 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.
Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee." External Southern Literary Messenger, November 1849, p. 697

Edgar Allen [sic] Poe cottage, New York. [between 1910 and 1920]. Detroit Publishing Company. Prints & Photographs Division

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Life

Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., an actor from Baltimore. After his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, he was taken into the home of John Allan, a Richmond merchant (presumably his godfather), and of his childless wife. He was later taken to Scotland and England (1815-20), where he was given a classical education that was continued in Richmond. For 11 months in 1826 he attended the University of Virginia, but his gambling losses at the university so incensed his guardian that he refused to let him continue, and Poe returned to Richmond to find his sweetheart, (Sarah) Elmira Royster, engaged. He went to Boston, where in 1827 he published a pamphlet of youthful Byronic poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. Poverty forced him to join the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, but, on the death of Poe's foster mother, John Allan purchased his release from the army and helped him get an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Before going, Poe published a new volume at Baltimore, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829). He successfully sought expulsion from the academy, where he was absent from all drills and classes for a week. He proceeded to New York City and brought out a volume of Poems, containing several masterpieces, some showing the influence of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He then returned to Baltimore, where he began to write stories. In 1833 his " MS. Found in a Bottle" won $50 from a Baltimore weekly, and by 1835 he was in Richmond as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. There he made a name as a critical reviewer and married his young cousin Virginia Clemm, who was only 13. Poe seems to have been an affectionate husband and son-in-law.

Poe was dismissed from his job in Richmond, apparently for drinking, and went to New York City. Drinking was in fact to be the bane of his life. To talk well in a large company he needed a slight stimulant, but a glass of sherry might start him on a spree; and, although he rarely succumbed to intoxication, he was often seen in public when he did. This gave rise to the conjecture that Poe was a drug addict, but according to medical testimony he had a brain lesion. While in New York City in 1838 he published a long prose narrative, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, combining (as so often in his tales) much factual material with the wildest fancies. It is considered one inspiration of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. In 1839 he became coeditor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia. There a contract for a monthly feature stimulated him to write "William Wilson" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," stories of supernatural horror. The latter contains a study of a neurotic now known to have been an acquaintance of Poe, not Poe himself.

Later in 1839 Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque appeared (dated 1840). He resigned from Burton's about June 1840 but returned in 1841 to edit its successor, Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, in which he printed "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"-the first detective story. In 1843 his "The Gold Bug" won a prize of $100 from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, which gave him great publicity. In 1844 he returned to New York, wrote "The Balloon Hoax" for the Sun, and became subeditor of the New York Mirror under N.P. Willis, thereafter a lifelong friend. In the New York Mirror of January 29, 1845, appeared, from advance sheets of the American Review, his most famous poem, "The Raven," which gave him national fame at once. Poe then became editor of the Broadway Journal, a short-lived weekly, in which he republished most of his short stories, in 1845. During this last year the now-forgotten poet Frances Sargent Locke Osgood pursued Poe. Virginia did not object, but "Fanny's" indiscreet writings about her literary love caused great scandal. His The Raven and Other Poems and a selection of his Tales came out in 1845, and in 1846 Poe moved to a cottage at Fordham (now part of New York City), where he wrote for Godey's Lady's Book (May-October 1846) "The Literati of New York City"-gossipy sketches on personalities of the day, which led to a libel suit.

Poe's wife, Virginia, died in January 1847. The following year he went to Providence, Rhode Island, to woo Sarah Helen Whitman, a poet. There was a brief engagement. Poe had close but platonic entanglements with Annie Richmond and with Sarah Anna Lewis, who helped him financially. He composed poetic tributes to all of them. In 1848 he also published the lecture "Eureka," a transcendental "explanation" of the universe, which has been hailed as a masterpiece by some critics and as nonsense by others. In 1849 he went south, had a wild spree in Philadelphia, but got safely to Richmond, where he finally became engaged to Elmira Royster, by then the widowed Mrs. Shelton, and spent a happy summer with only one or two relapses. He enjoyed the companionship of childhood friends and an unromantic friendship with a young poet, Susan Archer Talley.

Poe had some forebodings of death when he left Richmond for Baltimore late in September. There he died, although whether from drinking, heart failure, or other causes was still uncertain in the 21st century. He was buried in Westminster Presbyterian churchyard in Baltimore.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Edgar Allan Poe | Biography, Poems, Short Stories, & Facts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edgar Allan Poe, the master of macabre literature and pioneer of detective fiction, intrigued readers with his haunting tales that explored the depths of human psychology.