Edgar Allan Poe

At 40 years old, Edgar Allan Poe has this physical status:

Edgar Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic.

Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and macabre.

He is widely believed to have been regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's first short story writers.

He is generally believed to be the originator of the detective fiction genre and has been credited with the emergence of science fiction.

He was the first well-known American writer to make a living by writing alone, resulting in a financially challenging life and career.

In 1810, his father abandoned the family, and his mother died the following year.

Early life

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe Jr. William Henry Leonard Poe, his elder brother, and Rosalie Poe, his younger sister. Around 1750, their grandfather, David Poe Sr., emigrated from County Cavan, Ireland. Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, which the couple appeared in 1809. His father left the family in 1810 and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a thriving merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt with a variety of products, including cloth, wheat, tombstones, tobacco, and slaves. The Allans lived as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe," although they never officially adopted him.

In 1812, the Allan family was initiated into the Episcopal Church. His foster son was both lavishly spoiled and harshly disciplined by John Allan. Poe and his family immigrated to the United Kingdom in 1815, and Poe attended the Grammar School in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland (where Allan was born) before returning to London in 1816. He went to a boarding school in Chelsea before the 1817 summer. He was enrolled in Stoke Newington's Manor House School and later moved to a suburb 4 miles (6 km) north of London.

In 1820, Poe returned to Richmond with the Allans. As the city celebrated the Marquis de Lafayette visit, he served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard in 1824. William Galt, Allan's uncle and business benefactor, died in March 1825, leaving Allan several acres of real estate in Richmond. In 2021, the inheritance was estimated at $750,000 (equivalent to $18,000,000). Allan celebrated his growing fortune by purchasing Moldavia, a two-story brick house.

Before registering at the University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages, Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster. The university was in its infancy, built on Thomas Jefferson's ideals. It had stringent laws against gambling, horses, firearms, nicotine, and alcohol, but these laws were almost ignored. Jefferson introduced a system of student self-government that encouraged students to choose their own research, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique device was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. Poe lost touch with Royster during his stay there, and he became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Allan claimed that he was not given enough funds to register for classes, purchase texts, and even buy and furnish a dormitory. Allan did purchase more money and clothing, but Poe's debts increased. Poe left the university after a year, but he did not feel welcome back to Richmond, especially after finding out that his sweetheart Royster had married another man, Alexander Shelton. He went to Boston in April 1827, continuing himself as a clerk and newspaper editor, and he began using the name Henri Le Rennet during this period.

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Military career

Poe was unable to support himself, so he joined the United States Army as a private on May 27, 1827, under the name "Edgar A. Perry." Even though he was 18, he said he was 22 years old. He started serving at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month. Tamerlane and Other Poems, his first book, was published in the same year as a Bostonian, was released. Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received little attention. On November 8, 1827, Poe's regiment was sent to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, and travelled by sea on the brig Waltham. Poe was deemed "artificer," an enlisted tradesman who crafted shells for artillery, and his monthly salary was increased. He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank a non-commissioned officer could reach); he then attempted to complete his five-year service early. Poe revealed his real name and his situation to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who would only authorize Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with Allan. Poe wrote a letter to Allan, who was unresponsive and spent many months dismissing Poe's pleas; Allan may not have written to Poe to warn him of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Allan, perhaps comforted by his wife's death, agreed to help Poe's request to be discharged in order to be admitted to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, according to Poe.

On April 15, 1829, Poe was discharged after arranging a replacement to finish his enlisted term. Before arriving in West Point, he returned to Baltimore for a few days to be with her uncle Maria Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry Clemm, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe. Poe received "the very first words of encouragement I ever remember hearing" in a study of his poetry by influential scholar John Neal in September, causing Poe to dedicate one of the poems to Neal in his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, which was published in Baltimore in 1829.

Poe matriculated as a cadet at West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830. Allan married Louisa Patterson, his second wife, in October 1830. The foster father eventually disowned Poe after the marriage and bitter rivalry with Poe over the children born to Allan out of extramarital relationships. Poe left West Point by accidently becoming court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was charged with gross negligence of service and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. He pleaded not guilty of invoking dismissal despite knowing that he would be found guilty.

In February 1831, Poe left for New York and published Poems, a third collection of poems. The book was funded by West Point's fellow cadets, many of whom contributed 75 percent to the cause, raising the total cost by $170. They may have been looking for verses that were similar to Poe's about commanding officers. It was printed by Elam Bliss of New York as "Second Edition" and contained a page that reads: "To the United States." This volume is respectfully dedicated to the Corps of Cadets." The book reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf," as well as six previously unpublished poems, including early versions of "To Helen," "Israfel," and "The City in the Sea." In March 1831, Poe returned to Baltimore to his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Henry Henry, his elder brother, had been in ill health, in part due to alcoholism issues, and he died on August 1, 1831.

Publishing career

Poe began his writing career after his brother's death, but he took a difficult time in American publishing to do so. He was one of the first Americans to write alone, but was hampered by the lack of an international copyright statute. Rather than paying for fresh British works by Americans, American publishers made illegal copies of British works. The Panic of 1837 damaged the industry further. Around this period, there was a surge in American periodicals, owing to a large part to new technology, but most of them did not last beyond a few years. Publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised, and Poe has resorted to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

Poe had turned his attention to prose after his early attempts at poetry, owing to John Neal's reviews in The Yankee magazine. He began writing on his first drama Politian after being attached to a Philadelphia newspaper. Politian is a fictional character. In October 1833, the Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded him a prize for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle." The tale brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means who aided Poe in the creation of some of his stories and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835, but White fired him within a few weeks for being inebriated on the job. On September 22, 1835, Poe returned to Baltimore, where he obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia, but it is unknown if they were married at the time. He was 26 years old and she was 13.

After promising good behavior, Poe was resurgent by White, and he and Virginia and her mother returned to Richmond. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. Poe's circulation increased from 700 to 3,500 during this period. In the paper, he wrote several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories. He and Virginia held a Presbyterian wedding reception hosted by Amasa Converse at their Richmond boarding house on May 16, 1836, with a witness falsely attesting Clemm's age at 21.

Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket's biography was published and extensively discussed in 1838 by Poe. Poe became Burton's Gentleman's Magazine assistant editor in the summer of 1839. He has written numerous articles, reports, and reviews, extending his reputation as a trenchant critic, which he had honed at the Messenger. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes in 1839, but he made no money from it and the book received mixed reviews.

Poe published a prospectus in June 1840, announcing his intentions to start The Stylus, although he originally intended to say it The Penn because it would be based in Philadelphia. In the Philadelphia Evening Post's June 6, 1840, he bought advertisement space for his prospectus. "Project of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal, will be edited and published in Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe "Gr" is a word that comes to mind. The journal was never published before Poe's death.

After about a year as a writer and co-editor at the then-successful monthly Graham's Magazine, Poe departed Burton's Magazine. Poe was one of the co-signatories to an editorial note on Graham's 1841 win over the last year: "Perhaps the editors of no magazine, whether in America or Europe, sat down" at the end of a year, to reflect on the changes of their work with more joy than we do now." Our triumph has been nothing but spectacular. "No periodical has seen the same rise in so short a time," we can say without fear of contradiction.

Poe attempted to obtain a position in President John Tyler's administration around this time, claiming that he was a Whig Party member. With the help of President Tyler's son Robert, an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas, he hoped to be admitted to the United States Custom House in Philadelphia. Poe refused to turn up for a meeting with Thomas in mid-September 1842, citing a fever, although Thomas thought he had been inebriated, though Thomas was not aware of it. Poe was promised a job, but all positions were filled by others.

When singing and playing the piano, Virginia showed the first signs of drinking, or tuberculosis, which Poe described as breaking a blood vessel in her throat. Poe was only partially recovered, and Poe began to drink more alcohol as a result of her illness. For a time, he left Graham's and started looking for a new role, but he was waiting for a government job. He returned to New York, where he served briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor and then owner of the Broadway Journal. Although Longfellow never replied, Poe alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism. "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845, and it became a hit sensation. Poe became a household name within minutes, though he was paid just $9 for the issue. It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles."

In 1846, the Broadway Journal had failed, and Poe and the Bronx moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York. The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage has been relocated to a park near the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Roads. At St. John's College, now Fordham University, Poe befriended the Jesuits. On January 30, 1847, Virginia died at the cottage. The frequent theme of Poe's "death of a beautiful woman" in his lifetime, including his wife, is shared by biographers and commentators.

Following his wife's death, Poe became more unstable. He attempted to sue poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement stumbling because of Poe's inebriation and erratic behavior. There are also clear signs that Whitman's mother intervened and did everything possible to break their marriage. Poe then returned to Richmond and rekindled a friendship with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster.

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