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Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction. He is the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

Poe was born in Boston, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth "Eliza" Poe. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and when his mother died the following year, Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but he was with them well into young adulthood. He attended the University of Virginia but left after a year due to lack of money. He quarreled with John Allan over the funds for his education, and his gambling debts. In 1827, having enlisted in the United States Army under an assumed name, he published his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, credited only to "a Bostonian". Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement after the death of Allan's wife in 1829. Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declared a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and parted ways with Allan.

Poe switched his focus to prose, and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In 1836, he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, but she died of tuberculosis in 1847. In January 1845, he published his poem " The Raven" to instant success. He planned for years to produce his own journal The Penn, later renamed . But before it began publishing, Poe died in Baltimore in 1849, aged 40, under mysterious circumstances. The cause of his death remains unknown, and has been variously attributed to many causes including disease, alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide.

Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, as well as specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. He and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.

Early life and education

Plaque marking the approximate location of Poe's birth on Carver Street in Boston

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of American actor David Poe Jr. and English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. He had an elder brother, Henry, and a younger sister, Rosalie. Their grandfather, David Poe, had emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland, around 1750.

His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from pulmonary tuberculosis. Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods, including cloth, wheat, tombstones, tobacco, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe", although they never formally adopted him.

The Allan family had Poe baptized into the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son. The family sailed to the United Kingdom in 1815, and Poe attended the grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, where Allan was born, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby's Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb 4 miles (6 km) north of London.

Poe moved with the Allans back to Richmond in 1820. In 1824, he served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as the city celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette. In March 1825, Allan's uncle and business benefactor William Galt died, who was said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, leaving Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000 (equivalent to $19,000,000 in 2022). By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick house called Moldavia.

Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages. The university was in its infancy, established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were mostly ignored. Jefferson enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. He claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave up on the university after a year but did not feel welcome returning to Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married another man, Alexander Shelton. He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer, and started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet during this period.

Military career

In May 1827, Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he was first stationed at Fort Independence in Boston

Poe was unable to support himself, so he enlisted in the United States Army as a private on May 27, 1827, using the name "Edgar A. Perry". He claimed that he was 22 years old even though he was 18. He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month. That year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry titled Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention. Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled. He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery, the highest rank that a non-commissioned officer could achieve; he then sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who would allow Poe to be discharged only if he reconciled with Allan. Poe wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic and spent several months ignoring Poe's pleas; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Poe was finally discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him. Before entering West Point, he moved to Baltimore for a time to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe. In September of that year, Poe received "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember to have heard" in a review of his poetry by influential critic John Neal, prompting Poe to dedicate one of the poems to Neal in his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, published in Baltimore in 1829.

Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830. In October 1830, Allan married his second wife Louisa Patterson. The marriage and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of extramarital affairs led to the foster father finally disowning Poe. Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. He tactically pleaded not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing that he would be found guilty.

Poe left for New York in February 1831 and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had written about commanding officers. It was printed by Elam Bliss of New York, labeled as "Second Edition", and including a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated". The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems, including early versions of " To Helen", " Israfel", and " The City in the Sea". Poe returned to Baltimore to his aunt, brother, and cousin in March 1831. His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on August 1, 1831.

Publishing career

In 1835, at age 26, Poe obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was then age 13; they were married for 11 years until her death, which may have inspired some of Poe's writing.

An 1845 portrait of Poe by Samuel Stillman Osgood

The cottage in the Fordham section of Bronx, where Poe spent his last years

After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer, but he chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so. He was one of the first Americans to live by writing alone and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law. American publishers often produced unauthorized copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans. The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837. There was a booming growth in American periodicals around this time, fueled in part by new technology, but many did not last beyond a few issues. Publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised, and Poe repeatedly resorted to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose, likely based on John Neal's critiques in magazine. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama . The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded him a prize in October 1833 for his short story " MS. Found in a Bottle". The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means who helped Poe place some of his stories and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond.

In 1835, Poe became assistant editor of the ' Southern Literary Messenger, but White discharged him within a few weeks for being drunk on the job. Poe returned to Baltimore, where he obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia on September 22, 1835, though it is unknown if they were married at that time. He was 26 and she was 13.

Poe was reinstated by White after promising good behavior, and he returned to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500. He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he and Virginia held a Presbyterian wedding ceremony performed by Amasa Converse at their Richmond boarding house, with a witness falsely attesting Clemm's age as 21.

Philadelphia

In 1838, Poe relocated to Philadelphia, where he lived at four different residences between 1838 and 1844, one of which at 532 N. 7th Street has been preserved as a National Historic Landmark.

That same year, Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed. In the summer of 1839, he became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic which he had established at the Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money from it and it received mixed reviews.

In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal called , although he originally intended to call it The Penn, since it would have been based in Philadelphia. He bought advertising space for his prospectus in the June 6, 1840, issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe." The journal was never produced before Poe's death.

Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as writer and co-editor at Graham's Magazine, a successful monthly publication. In the last number of Graham's for 1841, Poe was among the co-signatories to an editorial note of celebration of the tremendous success the magazine had achieved in the past year: "Perhaps the editors of no magazine, either in America or in Europe, ever sat down, at the close of a year, to contemplate the progress of their work with more satisfaction than we do now. Our success has been unexampled, almost incredible. We may assert without fear of contradiction that no periodical ever witnessed the same increase during so short a period."

Around this time, Poe attempted to secure a position in the administration of John Tyler, claiming that he was a member of the Whig Party. He hoped to be appointed to the United States Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert, an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas. Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to have been sick, though Thomas believed that he had been drunk. Poe was promised an appointment, but all positions were filled by others.

One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, or tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano, which Poe described as breaking a blood vessel in her throat. She only partially recovered, and Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of her illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal, and later its owner. There Poe alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded. On January 29, 1845, Poe's poem " The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. It made Poe a household name almost instantly, though he was paid only $9 for its publication. It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".

The Broadway Journal failed in 1846, and Poe moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York, in the Bronx. That home, now known as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, was relocated in later years to a park near the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road. Nearby, Poe befriended the Jesuits at St. John's College, now Fordham University. Virginia died at the cottage on January 30, 1847. Biographers and critics often suggest that Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.

Poe was increasingly unstable after his wife's death. He attempted to court poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior. There is also strong evidence that Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail the relationship. Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster.

Poe is interred at Westminster Hall in Baltimore, Maryland (Lat: 39.29027; Long: −76.62333); the circumstances and cause of his death remain uncertain.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found semiconscious in Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to Joseph W. Walker, who found him. He was taken to the Washington Medical College, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was not coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and why he was wearing clothes that were not his own. He is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. His attending physician said that Poe's final words were, "Lord help my poor soul". All of the relevant medical records have been lost, including Poe's death certificate.

Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of death remains a mystery. Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera, carbon monoxide poisoning, and rabies. One theory dating from 1872 suggests that Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.

Griswold's memoir

Immediately after Poe's death, his literary rival Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote a slanted high-profile obituary under a pseudonym, filled with falsehoods that cast Poe as a lunatic, and which described him as a person who "walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers, (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned)".

The long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune, signed "Ludwig" on the day that Poe was buried in Baltimore. It was further published throughout the country. The obituary began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it." "Ludwig" was soon identified as Griswold, an editor, critic, and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.

Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. There he depicted Poe as a depraved, drunken, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence. Many of his claims were either lies or distortions; for example, it is seriously disputed that Poe was a drug addict. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well, including John Neal, who published an article defending Poe and attacking Griswold as a " Rhadamanthus, who is not to be bilked of his fee, a thimble-full of newspaper notoriety". Griswold's book nevertheless became a popularly accepted biographical source. This was in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man. Letters that Griswold presented as proof were later revealed as forgeries.

Literary style and themes

Poe's best-known fiction works are Gothic horror, adhering to the genre's conventions to appeal to the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism which Poe strongly disliked. He referred to followers of the transcendental movement as "Frog-Pondians", after the pond on Boston Common, and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run mad," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake". Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them".

Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity. " Metzengerstein" is the first story that Poe is known to have published and his first foray into horror, but it was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre. Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in " The Balloon-Hoax".

Poe wrote much of his work using themes aimed specifically at mass-market tastes. To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences, such as phrenology and physiognomy.

Literary theory

Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as " The Poetic Principle". He disliked didacticism and allegory, though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. He believed that work of quality should be brief and focus on a specific single effect. To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.

Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven" in the essay " The Philosophy of Composition", and he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has been questioned whether he really followed this system, however. T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method." Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".

An 1875 illustration of Poe by French impressionist Édouard Manet for the Stéphane Mallarmé translation of "The Raven"

Poe depicted in a modern retouched version of the daguerreotype

During his lifetime, Poe was mostly recognized as a literary critic. Fellow critic James Russell Lowell called him "the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America", suggesting-rhetorically-that he occasionally used prussic acid instead of ink. Poe's caustic reviews earned him the reputation of being a "tomahawk man". A favorite target of Poe's criticism was Boston's acclaimed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was often defended by his literary friends in what was later called "The Longfellow War". Poe accused Longfellow of "the heresy of the didactic", writing poetry that was preachy, derivative, and thematically plagiarized. Poe correctly predicted that Longfellow's reputation and style of poetry would decline, concluding, "We grant him high qualities, but deny him the Future".

Poe was also known as a writer of fiction and became one of the first American authors of the 19th century to become more popular in Europe than in the United States. Poe is particularly respected in France, in part due to early translations by Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire's translations became definitive renditions of Poe's work in Continental Europe.

Poe's early detective fiction tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the " Edgars". Poe's work also influenced science fiction, notably Jules Verne, who wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery, also known as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields. Science fiction author H. G. Wells noted, " Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago". In 2013, The Guardian cited Pym as one of the greatest novels ever written in the English language, and noted its influence on later authors such as Doyle, Henry James, B. Traven, and David Morrell.

Horror author and historian H. P. Lovecraft was heavily influenced by Poe's horror tales, dedicating an entire section of his long essay, " Supernatural Horror in Literature", to his influence on the genre. In his letters, Lovecraft described Poe as his "God of Fiction". Lovecraft's earlier stories express a significant influence from Poe. A later work, At the Mountains of Madness, quotes him and was influenced by The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Lovecraft also made extensive use of Poe's unity of effect in his fiction. Alfred Hitchcock once said, "It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films". Many references to Poe's works are present in Vladimir Nabokov's novels.

Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned imitators. One trend among imitators of Poe has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics to be "channeling" poems from Poe's spirit. One of the most notable of these was Lizzie Doten, who published Poems from the Inner Life in 1863, in which she claimed to have "received" new compositions by Poe's spirit. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as " The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook.

Poe has also received criticism. This is partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and its influence upon his reputation. William Butler Yeats was occasionally critical of Poe and once called him "vulgar". Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson reacted to "The Raven" by saying, "I see nothing in it", and derisively referred to Poe as "the jingle man". Aldous Huxley wrote that Poe's writing "falls into vulgarity" by being "too poetical"-the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger.

It is believed that only twelve copies have survived of Poe's first book Tamerlane and Other Poems. In December 2009, one copy sold at Christie's auctioneers in New York City for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.

Physics and cosmology

Eureka: A Prose Poem, an essay written in 1848, included a cosmological theory that presaged the Big Bang theory by 80 years, as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox. Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition. For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science, but insisted that it was still true and considered it to be his career masterpiece. Even so, Eureka is full of scientific errors. In particular, Poe's suggestions ignored Newtonian principles regarding the density and rotation of planets.

Cryptography

Poe had a keen interest in cryptography. He had placed a notice of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers which he proceeded to solve. In July 1841, Poe had published an essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine. Capitalizing on public interest in the topic, he wrote " The Gold-Bug" incorporating ciphers as an essential part of the story. Poe's success with cryptography relied not so much on his deep knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram) as on his knowledge of the magazine and newspaper culture. His keen analytical abilities, which were so evident in his detective stories, allowed him to see that the general public was largely ignorant of the methods by which a simple substitution cryptogram can be solved, and he used this to his advantage. The sensation that Poe created with his cryptography stunts played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.

Two ciphers he published in 1841 under the name "W. B. Tyler" were not solved until 1992 and 2000 respectively. One was a quote from Joseph Addison's play Cato; the other is probably based on a poem by Hester Thrale.

Poe had an influence on cryptography beyond increasing public interest during his lifetime. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, was heavily influenced by Poe. Friedman's initial interest in cryptography came from reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child, an interest that he later put to use in deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II.

In popular culture

As a character

The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often in order to represent the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and in order to exploit his personal struggles. Many such depictions also blend in with characters from his stories, suggesting that Poe and his characters share identities. Often, fictional depictions of Poe use his mystery-solving skills in such novels as The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.

Preserved homes, landmarks, and museums

The Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, one of several preserved former residences of Poe

No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The oldest standing home in Richmond, the Old Stone House, is in use as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, though Poe never lived there. The collection includes many items that Poe used during his time with the Allan family, and also features several rare first printings of Poe works. 13 West Range is the dorm room that Poe is believed to have used while studying at the University of Virginia in 1826; it is preserved and available for visits. Its upkeep is overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society.

The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is at 203 North Amity St. in Baltimore, which is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia and possibly his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe. It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society.

While in Philadelphia between 1838 and 1844, Poe lived at at least four different residences, including the Indian Queen Hotel at 15 S. 4th Street, at a residence at 16th and Locust Streets, at 2502 Fairmount Street, and then in the Spring Garden section of the city at 532 N. 7th Street, a residence that has been preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. Poe's final home in Bronx, New York City, is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage.

In Boston, a commemorative plaque on Boylston Street is several blocks away from the actual location of Poe's birth. The house which was his birthplace at 62 Carver Street no longer exists; also, the street has since been renamed "Charles Street South". A "square" at the intersection of Broadway, Fayette, and Carver Streets had once been named in his honor, but it disappeared when the streets were rearranged. In 2009, the intersection of Charles and Boylston Streets (two blocks north of his birthplace) was designated "Edgar Allan Poe Square".

In March 2014, fundraising was completed for construction of a permanent memorial sculpture, known as Poe Returning to Boston, at this location. The winning design by Stefanie Rocknak depicts a life-sized Poe striding against the wind, accompanied by a flying raven; his suitcase lid has fallen open, leaving a "paper trail" of literary works embedded in the sidewalk behind him. The public unveiling on October 5, 2014, was attended by former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

Other Poe landmarks include a building on the Upper West Side, where Poe temporarily lived when he first moved to New York City. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote " The Raven" here. On Sullivan's Island in Charleston County, South Carolina, the setting of Poe's tale " The Gold-Bug" and where Poe served in the Army in 1827 at Fort Moultrie, there is a restaurant called Poe's Tavern. In the Fell's Point section of Baltimore, a bar still stands where legend says that Poe was last seen drinking before his death. Known as "The Horse You Came in On", local lore insists that a ghost whom they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.

Photographs

An 1848 "Ultima Thule" daguerreotype of Poe

Early daguerreotypes of Poe continue to arouse great interest among literary historians. Notable among them are:

"Ultima Thule" ("far discovery") to honor the new photographic technique; taken in November 1848 in Providence, Rhode Island, probably by Edwin H. Manchester

"Annie", given to Poe's friend Annie L. Richmond; probably taken in June 1849 in Lowell, Massachusetts, photographer unknown

Poe Toaster

Between 1949 and 2009, a bottle of cognac and three roses were left at Poe's original grave marker every January 19 by an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster". Sam Porpora was a historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimore, where Poe is buried; he claimed on August 15, 2007, that he had started the tradition in 1949. Porpora said that the tradition began in order to raise money and enhance the profile of the church. His story has not been confirmed, and some details which he gave to the press are factually inaccurate. The Poe Toaster's last appearance was on January 19, 2009, the day of Poe's bicentennial.

List of selected works

Short stories

Poetry

Other works

References

^ Sun, Chunyan (April 23, 2015). "Horror from the Soul-Gothic Style in Allan Poe's Horror Fictions" (PDF). English Language Teaching. Canadian Center of Science and Education. 8 (5). doi:10.5539/elt.v8n5p94.

^ Semtner, Christopher P. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond: the Raven in the River City. Charleston, SC: History Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-60949-607-4. OCLC 779472206.

1634-1699: ^ McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700-1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800-present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800-".

University of Virginia. ^ A Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia. Second Session, Commencing February 1, 1826. Charlottesville, VA: Chronicle Steam Book Printing House, 1880, p. 10

^ Graham, George; Embury, E.; Peterson, Charles; Stephens, A.; Poe, Edgar (December 1841). "The Closing Year". Graham's Magazine. Philadelphia, PA: George R. Graham. We began the year almost unknown; certainly far behind our contemporaries in numbers; we close it with a list of twenty-five thousand subscribers, and the assurance on every hand that our popularity has as yet seen only its dawning. (See page 308 of pdf.)

Schroth, Raymond A. ^ Fordham: A History and Memoir. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008: 22-25.

^ Geiling, Natasha. "The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe". Smithsonian Magazine.

^ Van Luling, Todd (January 19, 2017). "A Vengeful Arch-Nemesis Taught You Fake News About Edgar Allan Poe". Huffington Post.

^ "(Introduction)" (Exhibition at Boston Public Library). The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston. The Trustees of Boston College. March 31, 2010.

^ Zimmerman, Brett (2005). Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 85-87. ISBN 978-0-7735-2899-4.

^ "Longfellow's Serenity and Poe's Prediction" (Exhibition at Boston Public Library and Massachusetts Historical Society). Forgotten Chapters of Boston's Literary History. The Trustees of Boston College. July 30, 2012.

^ McCrum, Robert (November 23, 2013). "The 100 best novels: No 10 - The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016.

^ Brian Boyd on Speak, Memory Archived 2014-06-29 at the Wayback Machine, Vladimir Nabokov Centennial, Random House, Inc.

"Though some wondered whether Poe wrote the source text, I find that it previously appeared in the ^ Baltimore Sun of July 4, 1840; and that it was in turn based on a widely reprinted poem ("Nuptial Repartee") that first appeared in the June 21, 1813, Morning Herald of London. A manuscript in the hand of Hester Thrale (i.e., Hester Lynch Piozzi) in Harvard's library hints that she may be the true author." From Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living by Paul Collins. Boston: New Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014: p. 111.

^ "An Interactive Map of Literary Boston: 1794-1862" (Exhibition). Forgotten Chapters of Boston's Literary History. The Trustees of Boston College. July 30, 2012.

^ Lee, M.G. (October 5, 2014). "Edgar Allan Poe immortalized in the city he loathed". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 2, 2015.

^ "Poe Toaster tribute is 'nevermore'". The Baltimore Sun. Tribune Company. January 19, 2010. Archived from the original on January 20, 2012.

Further reading

Bittner, William (1962). . Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-09686-7.

George Washington Eveleth (1922). Thomas Ollive Mabbott (ed.). The letters from George W. Eveleth to Edgar Allan Poe. Bulletin of the New York Public Library. Vol. 26 (reprint ed.). The New York Public Library.

Pope-Hennessy, Una (1934). Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849: A Critical Biography. New York: Haskell House.

Robinson, Marilynne, "On Edgar Allan Poe", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXII, no. 2 (February 5, 2015), pp. 4, 6.

External links

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Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism and Gothic fiction in the United States, and of American literature.

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O'Shea Jackson Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, and filmmaker. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popularity, and his political rap solo albums AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (1990), Death Certificate (1991), and The Predator (1992) were critically and commercially successful. He has also had an active film career since the early 1990s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of N.W.A in 2016.

A native of Los Angeles, Jackson formed his first rap group called C.I.A. in 1986. In 1987, with Eazy-E and Dr. Dre, he formed the pioneering gangsta rap group N.W.A. As its lead rapper, he wrote some of Dre's and most of Eazy's lyrics on Straight Outta Compton, a landmark album that shaped West Coast hip hop's early identity and helped differentiate it from East Coast rap. N.W.A was also known for their violent lyrics, threatening to attack abusive police and innocent civilians alike, which stirred controversy. After a monetary dispute over the group's management by Eazy-E and Jerry Heller, Cube left N.W.A in late 1989, teaming with New York artists and launching a solo rap career.

Ice Cube entered cinema by playing Doughboy in director John Singleton's feature debut Boyz n the Hood, a 1991 drama named after a 1987 rap song that Ice Cube wrote. Ice Cube also cowrote and starred in the 1995 comedy film ; "coarse and ribald", it premised a successful franchise and reshaped his persona into a friendly movie star. His directorial debut was the 1998 film . By 2020, his acting roles included about 40 films, among them the 1999 war comedy Three Kings, family comedies like the Barbershop series, and buddy cop comedies 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, and . He was an executive producer of many of these films, as well as of the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton.

Life and side ventures

Ice Cube was born on June 15, 1969, in Los Angeles, to Doris, a hospital clerk and custodian, and Hosea Jackson, a machinist and UCLA groundskeeper. He has an older brother, and they had a half-sister who was murdered when Cube was 12. He grew up on Van Wick Street in the Westmont section of South Los Angeles.

In ninth grade at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, Cube began writing raps once challenged by a friend nicknamed "Kiddo" to do so in typewriting class. "Kiddo" lost. Explaining his stage name, Cube implicates his older brother: "He threatened to slam me into a freezer and pull me out when I was an ice cube. I just started using that name, and it just caught on."

Cube also attended William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California. He was bused 40 miles to the suburban school from his home in a high-crime neighborhood. Soon after he wrote and recorded a few locally successful rap songs with N.W.A, he left for Arizona to enroll in the Phoenix Institute of Technology in the fall 1987 semester. In 1988, with a diploma in architectural drafting, he returned to the Los Angeles area and rejoined N.W.A, but kept a career in architecture drafting as a backup plan.

In 1990, he formed his own record label, Street Knowledge, whereby a musical associate via the rap group Public Enemy introduced him to the Nation of Islam (NOI). Ice Cube converted to Islam. Although denying membership in the NOI, whose ideology often rebukes whites and especially Jews, he readily adopted its ideology of black nationalism, familiar to the rap community. Still, he has claimed to heed his own conscience as a "natural Muslim, 'cause it's just me and God". Questioned in 2017, he said, in part, that he thinks "religion is stupid". He estimated, "I'm gonna live a long life, and I might change religions three or four times before I die. I'm on the Islam tip-but I'm on the Christian tip, too. I'm on the Buddhist tip as well. Everyone has something to offer to the world."

On April 26, 1992, Ice Cube married Kimberly Woodruff, born September 1970. They have four children together. In 2005, asked about the balance between his music and his parenting, Cube discussed counseling his children to appraise the violence depicted in all media, not just in music lyrics. His eldest son, O'Shea Jackson Jr., portrayed him in the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton.

In a 2016 interview, he cited the 1975 film as his favorite movie, and his favorite among his own songs as " It Was a Good Day". Commercially, Cube has endorsed Coors Light beer and St. Ides malt liquor, and licensed a clothing line, Solo by Cube. In 2017, he launched Big3, a 3-on-3 basketball league starring former NBA players. Its first season started that June with eight teams, an eight-week regular season, playoffs, and a championship game.

Musical career

In 1986 at the age of 16, Ice Cube began rapping in the trio C.I.A., but soon joined the newly formed rap group N.W.A. He was N.W.A's lead rapper and main ghostwriter on its official debut album, 1988's Straight Outta Compton. Via financial dispute, he left by the start of 1990. During 1990, his debut solo album, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, found him also leading a featured rap group, Da Lench Mob.

With friend Sir Jinx, Ice Cube formed the rap group C.I.A., and performed at parties hosted by Dr. Dre. Since 1984, Dre was a member of a popular DJ crew, the World Class Wreckin' Cru, which by 1985 was also performing and recording electro rap. Dre had Cube help write the Wreckin Cru's hit song "Cabbage Patch". Dre also joined Cube on a side project, a duo called Stereo Crew, which made a 12-inch record, "She's a Skag", released on Epic Records in 1986.

In 1987, C.I.A. released the Dr. Dre-produced single " My Posse". Meanwhile, the Wreckin' Cru's home base was the Eve After Dark nightclub, about a quarter of a mile outside of the city Compton in Los Angeles county. While Dre was on the turntable, Ice Cube would rap, often parodying other artists' songs. In one instance, Cube's rendition was "My Penis", parodying Run-DMC's " My Adidas". In 2015, the nightclub's co-owner and Wreckin' leader Alonzo Williams would recall feeling his reputation damaged by this and asking it not to be repeated.

1986-1989: N.W.A.

At 16, Cube sold his first song to Eric Wright, soon dubbed Eazy-E, who was forming Ruthless Records and the musical team N.W.A, based in Compton, California. Himself from South Central Los Angeles, Cube would be N.W.A's only core member not born in Compton.

Upon the success of the song " Boyz-n-the-Hood"-written by Cube, produced by Dre, and rapped by Eazy-E, helping establish gangsta rap in California-Eazy focused on developing N.W.A, which soon gained MC Ren. Cube wrote some of Dre's and nearly all of Eazy's lyrics on N.W.A's official debut album, Straight Outta Compton, released in August 1988. Yet by late 1989, Cube questioned his compensation and N.W.A's management by Jerry Heller.

Cube also wrote most of Eazy-E's debut album . He received a total pay of $32,000, and the contract that Heller presented in 1989 did not confirm that he was officially an N.W.A member. After leaving the group and its label in December, Cube sued Heller, and the lawsuit was later settled out of court. In response, N.W.A members attacked Cube on the 1990 EP 100 Miles and Runnin', and on N.W.A's next and final album, Niggaz4Life, in 1991.

1989-1993: Early solo career, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Death Certificate, and The Predator

In early 1990, Ice Cube recorded his debut solo album, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, in New York with iconic rap group Public Enemy's production team, the Bomb Squad. Arriving in May 1990, it was an instant hit, further swelling rap's mainstream integration. Controversial nonetheless, it drew accusations of misogyny and racism. The album introduces Ice Cube's affirmation of black nationalism and ideology of black struggle.

Cube appointed Yo-Yo, a female rapper and guest on the album, to the head his record label, and helped produce her debut album Make Way for the Motherlode. Also in 1990, Cube followed up with an EP-Kill At Will-critically acclaimed, and rap's first EP certified Platinum.

His second album Death Certificate was released in 1991. The album thought to as more focused, yet even more controversial, triggering accusations of anti-white, antisemitic, and misogynist content. The album was split into two themes: the Death Side, "a vision of where we are today", and the Life Side, "a vision of where we need to go". The track " No Vaseline" scathingly retorts insults directed at him by N.W.A's 1990 EP and 1991 album, which call him a traitor. But besides calling for hanging Eazy-E as a "house nigga", the track blames N.W.A's manager Jerry Heller for exploiting the group, mentions that he is a Jew, and calls for his murder. Ice Cube contended that he mentioned Heller's ethnicity merely incidentally, not to premise attack, but as news media mention nonwhite assailants' races. The track "Black Korea", also deemed racist, was also thought as foreseeing the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Broadening his audience, though, Cube toured with Lollapalooza in 1992.

Cube's third album, The Predator, arrived in November 1992. Referring to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the " Wicked" sing opens, "April 29 was power to the people, and we might just see a sequel." The Predator was the first album ever to debut at No. 1 on both the R&B/hip-hop and pop charts. Singles include " It Was a Good Day" and " Check Yo Self", songs having a "two-part" music video. Generally drawing critical praise, the album is his most successful commercially, over three million copies sold in the US. After this album, Cube's rap audience severely diminished, and never regained the prominence of his first three albums.

During this time, Cube began to have numerous features on other artists' songs. In 1992, Cube assisted on Del the Funky Homosapien's debut album and on Da Lench Mob's debut album, which Cube produced, and featured on the Kool G Rap & DJ Polo song " Two to the Head". In 1993, he worked on Kam's debut album. Also in 1993, Cube and Ice-T collaborated on the track "Last Wordz" off 2Pac's album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z..

1993-1998: Lethal Injection and forming Westside Connection

Cube's fourth album, Lethal Injection, came out in late 1993. Here, Cube borrowed from the then-popular G-funk popularized by Dr. Dre. Although not received well by critics, the album brought successful singles, including " Really Doe", " Bop Gun (One Nation)", " You Know How We Do It", and "What Can I Do?" After this album, Ice Cube effectively lost his rap audience.

Following Lethal Injection, Cube focused on films and producing albums of other rappers, including Da Lench Mob, Mack 10, Mr. Short Khop, and Kausion. In 1994, Cube teamed with onetime N.W.A groupmate Dr. Dre, who was then leading rap's G-funk subgenre, for the first time since Cube had left the group, and which had disbanded upon Dre's 1991 departure. The result was the Cube and Dre song " Natural Born Killaz", on the Murder Was The Case soundtrack, released by Dre's then-new label, Death Row Records.

In 1995, Cube joined Mack 10 and WC in forming a side trio, the Westside Connection. Feeling neglected by East Coast media, a longstanding issue in rap's bicoastal rivalry, the group aimed to reinforce West pride and resonate with the undervalued. The Westside Connection's first album, (1996), featured tracks like "Bow Down" and "Gangstas Make the World Go 'Round" that reflected the group's objectives. The album was certified Platinum by year's end. Interpreting rapper Common's song " I Used to Love H.E.R." as a diss of West Coast rap, Cube and the Westside Connection briefly feuded with him, but they resolved amicably in 1997.

It was also at this time that Cube began collaborating outside the rap genre. In 1997, he worked with David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor on a remix of Bowie's " I'm Afraid of Americans". In 1998, Cube was featured on the band Korn's song " Children of the Korn", and joined them on their Family Values Tour 1998.

1998-2006: War & Peace Vol. 1 & 2 and Westside Connection reunion

In November 1998, Cube released his long-awaited fifth solo album War & Peace Vol. 1 (The War Disc). The delayed sixth album, , arrived in 2000. These albums feature the Westside Connection and a reunion with his old N.W.A members Dr. Dre and MC Ren. Cube also received a return favor from Korn, as they appeared on his song "Fuck Dying" from Vol. 1. Many fans maintained that these two albums, especially the second, were lesser in quality to his earlier work. In 2000, Cube also joined Dr. Dre, Eminem & Snoop Dogg for the Up in Smoke Tour.

In 2002, Cube appeared on British DJ Paul Oakenfold's solo debut album, , on the track "Get Em Up".

Released in 2003, Westside Connection's second album, Terrorist Threats, fared well critically, but saw lesser sales. "Gangsta Nation" (featuring Nate Dogg), the only single released, was a radio hit. After a rift between Cube and Mack 10 about Cube's film work minimizing the group's touring, the Westside Connection disbanded in 2005.

In 2004, Cube featured on the song " Real Nigga Roll Call" by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, the then leaders of rap's crunk subgenre.

2006-2012: Laugh Now, Cry Later, Raw Footage, and I Am the West

In 2006, Cube released his seventh solo album, Laugh Now, Cry Later, selling 144,000 units in the first week. Lil Jon and Scott Storch produced the lead single, " Why We Thugs". In October, Ice Cube was honored at VH1's Annual Hip Hop Honors, and performed it and also the track "Go to Church". Cube soon toured globally in the Straight Outta Compton Tour-accompanied by rapper WC from the Westside Connection-playing in America, Europe, Australia, and Japan.

Amid Cube's many features and brief collaborations, September 2007 brought In the Movies, a compilation album of Ice Cube songs on soundtracks.

Cube's eighth studio album, Raw Footage, arrived on August 19, 2008, yielding the singles " Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It" and " Do Ya Thang". Also in 2008, Cube helped on Tech N9ne's song " Blackboy", and was featured on The Game's song " State of Emergency".

As a fan of the NFL football team the Raiders, Cube released in October 2009 a tribute song, "Raider Nation". In 2009, Ice Cube performed at the Gathering of the Juggalos, and returned to perform at the 2011 festival.

On September 28, 2010, his ninth solo album, I Am the West, arrived with, Cube says, a direction different from any one of his other albums. Its producers include West Coast veterans like DJ Quik, Dr. Dre, E-A-Ski, and, after nearly 20 years, again Cube's onetime C.I.A groupmate Sir Jinx. Offering the single "I Rep That West", the album debuted at #22 on the Billboard 200 and sold 22,000 copies in its first week. Also in 2010, Cube signed up-and-coming recording artist named 7Tre The Ghost, deemed likely to be either skipped or given the cookie-cutter treatment by most record companies.

In 2011, Cube featured on Daz Dillinger's song "Iz You Ready to Die" and on DJ Quik's song "Boogie Till You Conk Out".

In 2012, Ice Cube recorded a verse for a remix of the Insane Clown Posse song " Chris Benoit", from ICP's The Mighty Death Pop! album, appearing on the album Mike E. Clark's Extra Pop Emporium.

In September 2012, during Pepsi's NFL Anthems campaign, Cube released his second Raiders anthem "Come and Get It".

2012-present: Everythang's Corrupt and forming Mount Westmore

In November 2012, Cube released more details on his forthcoming, tenth studio album, Everythang's Corrupt. Releasing its title track near the 2012 elections, he added, "You know, this record is for the political heads." But the album's release was delayed. On February 10, 2014, iTunes brought another single from it, " Sic Them Youngins on 'Em", and a music video followed the next day. Despite a couple of more song releases, the album's release was delayed even beyond Cube's work on the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton. After a statement setting release to 2017, the album finally arrived on December 7, 2018.

In 2014, Cube appeared on MC Ren's remix " Rebel Music", their first collaboration since the N.W.A reunion in 2000.

In 2020, Cube joined rappers Snoop Dogg, E-40, Too Short and formed the supergroup Mt. Westmore. The group's debut album is slated for release in 2021.

Film and television career

Since 1991, Ice Cube has acted in nearly 40 films, several of which are highly regarded. Some of them, such as the 1992 thriller and the 1999 war comedy Three Kings, highlight action. Yet most are comedies, including a few adult-oriented ones, like the Friday franchise, whereas most of these are family-friendly, like the Barbershop franchise.

John Singleton's seminal film Boyz n the Hood, released in July 1991, debuted the actor Ice Cube playing Doughboy, a persona that Cube played convincingly. Later, Cube starred with Ice-T and Bill Paxton in Walter Hill's 1992 thriller film , and in Charles Burnett's 1995 film The Glass Shield. Meanwhile, Cube declined to costar with Janet Jackson in Singleton's 1993 romance Poetic Justice, a role that Tupac Shakur then played.

Cube starred as the university student Fudge in Singleton's 1995 film Higher Learning. Singleton, encouraging Cube, had reportedly told him, "If you can write a record, you can write a movie." Cube cowrote the screenplay for the 1995 comedy , based on adult themes, and starred in it with comedian Chris Tucker. Made with $3.5 million, Friday drew $28 million worldwide. Two sequels, Next Friday and Friday After Next, arrived in 2000 and 2002.

In 1997, playing a South African exiled to America who returns 15 years later, Cube starred in the action thriller Dangerous Ground, and had a supporting role in . In 1998, writing again, the director Ice Cube debuted in The Players Club. In 1999, he starred alongside George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg as a staff sergeant in Three Kings, set in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, whereby the United States attacked Iraq in 1990, an "intelligent" war comedy critically acclaimed. In 2002, Cube starred in Kevin Bray's All About the Benjamins, and in Tim Story's comedy film Barbershop.

In 2004, Cube played in Barbershop 2 and . The next year, he replaced Vin Diesel in the second installment of the XXX film series and also appeared in the family comedy Are We There Yet?, which premised his role in its 2007 sequel Are We Done Yet?. In 2012, Cube appeared in 21 Jump Street. He also appeared in its sequel, 22 Jump Street, in 2014. That year, and then to return in 2016, he played alongside comedian Kevin Hart in two more Tim Story films, and Ride Along 2. Also in 2016, Cube returned for the third entry in the Barbershop series. And in 2017, Cube starred with Charlie Day in the comedy .

Documentary

In late 2005, Ice Cube and R. J. Cutler co-created the six-part documentary series Black. White., carried by cable network FX.

Ice Cube and basketball star LeBron James paired up to pitch a one-hour special to ABC based on James's life.

On May 11, 2010, ESPN aired Cube's directed documentary Straight Outta L.A., examining the interplay of Los Angeles sociopolitics, hip hop, and the Raiders during the 1980s into the 1990s.

Serial television

Ice Cube's Are We There Yet? series premiered on TBS on June 2, 2010. It revolves around a family adjusting to the matriarch's new husband, played by Terry Crews. On August 16, the show was renewed for 90 more episodes, amounting to six seasons. Cube also credits Tyler Perry for his entrée to TBS. In front of the television cameras, rather, Cube appeared with Elmo as a 2014 guest on the PBS children's show Sesame Street.

Controversies

In 2020, he was accused of a "long, disturbing history of anti-Semitism". This traces to his 1991 song " No Vaseline", which calls N.W.A's members slurs of blacks and calls N.W.A's manager Jerry Heller a "white man", "white boy", "Jew", "devil", "white Jew", and "cracker". In 2015, Ice Cube expressed regret at including the word Jew, as the attacks are on Heller, not "the whole Jewish race". That same year, he was sued for-but has denied-ordering a rabbi's assault. And in June 2020, some of Ice Cube's Twitter posts-promoting NOI leader Louis Farrakhan, an allegedly antisemitic mural, and associated conspiracy theories-triggered wide accusations of antisemitism. Suggesting himself "just pro-Black", not "anti anybody", Cube dismissed "the hype", and professed "telling my truth".

According to the Hollywood Reporter, in October 2021, Ice Cube was set to film "Oh Hell No" along side Jack Black, but parted ways from the project after refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19. The project would have paid nine million dollars.

Discography

Filmography

Year

Film

Functioned as

Role

Director

Producer

Screenwriter

Actor

1993

CB4

Himself (cameo)

The Book of Life

The Candle Maker (voice role)

Television

Year

Film

Functioned as

Role

Notes

Producer

Screenwriter

Director

Actor

WrestleMania 21

Himself

Video games

Awards and nominations

Film awards

Ice Cube has received nominations for several films in the past. To date, he has won two awards:

2000: Blockbuster Entertainment Award: Favorite Action Team (for Three Kings)

2002: MECCA Movie Award: Acting Award

Music awards

References

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
O'Shea Jackson Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, and filmmaker. His lyrics on N.W.A's 1988 album Straight Outta Compton contributed to gangsta rap's widespread popularity, and his political rap solo albums AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (1990), Death Certificate (1991), and The Predator (1992) were critically and commercially successful.