Master of Macabre Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his poetry and dark fiction. He laid the foundation for future mystery and horror writers like H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. His writing also transformed the short story into an art form, and he is credited with creating the first detective story. The master of macabre once confessed he was afraid of the dark. He wrote once, "I believe that demons take advantage of the night to mislead the unwary." Poe wrestled with his own demons throughout his life.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809 to Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins and David Poe. Both were traveling actors. By the age of three he was orphaned. John and Francis Allan of Richmond raised him. They never adopted Edgar, likely because they did not want their bloodline to be tainted by a lineage of theatrical performers. In spite of that, Edgar Poe added Allan to his name.

In 1815 the Allans moved to England. Young Poe attended various schools, including a boarding school in Chelsea. The headmaster was too cheap to purchase textbooks and conducted classes in the adjoining cemetery. Math lessons consisted of subtracting dates from gravestones. Sometimes the students got their exercise by digging graves for parishioners who had passed on. Poe proved to be an athlete and broke the long jump record of 21 feet 6 inches.

The Allans returned to the States in 1820. Poe attended the University of Virginia in 1826 to study languages but left a year later, two thousand dollars in debt from drinking and gambling. Poe's relationship with his foster father had always been contentious, but at that point they became estranged. Around this time Poe learned that his sweetheart, Sarah Royster, had married another.

Heartbroken and destitute, Poe decided to join the Army. In 1827 he enlisted in the United States Army as a private. He used the name Edgar A. Perry and lied about his age, saying he was twenty-two instead of eighteen. That year he published his first collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Fifty copies were printed. Even though he was able to climb the ranks and attain Sergeant Major for Artillery, the highest rank that can be achieved by a non-commissioned officer, Poe did not want to finish his five-year enlistment. He approached his commanding officer and revealed his true age and identity. Lieutenant Howard released Poe on the proviso Poe would reconcile with his foster father. Allan and Poe had a brief reconciliation, and the younger was discharged from the Army in 1829.

Poe briefly moved to Baltimore where he stayed with his widowed Aunt Maria Clemm and her teenage daughter Virginia. He published his second book of poems, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems.

July of 1830 Poe enrolled in West Point, becoming the only American author who ever attended. When he decided he did not have the temperament for a military career, he also became the first American author to intentionally get court-martialed.

After having dabbled with poetry with minimal success, Poe tried prose. He was able to place a few stories, but it was "MS. Found in a Bottle" that brought him notice. The Saturday Visitor, a Baltimore paper, awarded him a literary prize in 1853. He was offered an assistant editor job for Southern Literary Messenger but almost sabotaged his job by being temporarily fired for drunken behavior. Such would be the pattern for the rest of his life.

In 1853 he and his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm eloped. The couple fudged her age on the marriage certificate, saying she was twenty-one. His writing career continued in fits and starts. The Fall of the House of Usher was published in 1839 in The Gentleman's Magazine, and it was followed by Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. He tried starting his own publication, Penn Magazine, but it never got off the ground. Poe returned to The Gentleman's Magazine, now under new ownership. In their April 1841 issue, they published "Murders in the Rue Morgue," which became the first detective story. A new genre was born.

His most famous poem, The Raven, was published in The New York Mirror in 1845. Poe pronounced it the greatest poem ever written, and it became an overnight success. Although The Raven was widely circulated, Poe was ignorant of copyright laws and earned a total of nine dollars for it. He was able to procure a job at the Broadway Journal where he earned a dollar for each column he wrote. He was finally making a living as a writer.

His wife, Virginia, after suffering from tuberculosis for years, died in 1847. She was twenty-four years old. Though many who knew him said he never recovered from the loss of his wife, his grief did not keep him from courting other women. He resumed a relationship with Sarah Royster, who had become a wealthy widow. They set a wedding date, but Poe died before they married.

After having disappeared for five days, Poe was found in front of an Irish tavern, inebriated and wearing tattered clothes that looked like they belonged to someone else. No one really known what happened during his disappearance. Theories say he was kidnapped, or his delirium was attributed to advanced syphilis, rabies, drugs and alcohol. He was admitted to Washington College Hospital and spent two days in delirium and calling out to someone named "Reynolds." He begged his caretakers to shoot him in the head. His last words were, "Lord help my poor soul." Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849. He was forty years old.

References

The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Doubleday, 1984)

Secret Lives of Great Authors, by Robert Schnakenberg (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2008)