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This carefully crafted ebook is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The death of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious: the circumstances leading up to it are uncertain and the cause of death is disputed. On October 3, he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, "in great distress, and ... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7. He was 40 years old. Poe was never coherent enough to explain how he came to be in this condition. This book has been derived from Wikipedia: it contains the entire text of the title Wikipedia article + the entire text of all the 166 related (linked) Wikipedia articles to the title article. This book does not contain illustrations. e-Pedia (an imprint of e-artnow) charges for the convenience service of formatting these e-books for your eReader. We donate a part of our net income after taxes to the Wikimedia Foundation from the sales of all books based on Wikipedia content.
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Main table of contents:
Death of Edgar Allan Poe
Introduction
Chronology
Cause of death
Funeral
Burial and reburial
Posthumous character assassination
See also
References
External links
Linked articles
Contents
Death of Edgar Allan Poe
The death of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious: the circumstances leading up to it are uncertain and the cause of death is disputed. On October 3, he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, "in great distress, and ... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.[1] He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7. He was 40 years old. Poe was never coherent enough to explain how he came to be in this condition.
Much of the extant information about the last few days of Poe's life comes from his attending physician, Dr. John Joseph Moran, though his credibility is questionable.[2] Poe was buried after a small funeral at the back of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, but his remains were moved to a new grave with a larger monument in 1875. The newer monument also marks the burial place of Poe's wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria. Theories as to what caused Poe's death include suicide, murder, cholera, hypoglycemia, rabies, syphilis, influenza, and that Poe was a victim of cooping. Evidence of the influence of alcohol is strongly disputed.[3]
After Poe's death, Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote his obituary under the pseudonym "Ludwig". Griswold, who became the literary executor of Poe's estate, was actually a rival of Poe and later published his first full biography, depicting him as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman. Much of the evidence for this image of Poe is believed to have been forged by Griswold, and though friends of Poe denounced it,[4] this interpretation had lasting impact.
Chronology
On September 27, 1849, Poe left Richmond, Virginia, on his way home to New York. No reliable evidence exists about Poe's whereabouts until a week later on October 3, when he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, outside Ryan's Tavern (sometimes referred to as Gunner's Hall).[5] A printer named Joseph W. Walker sent a letter requesting help from an acquaintance of Poe, Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass.[1] His letter reads as follows:
Dear Sir—There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance. Yours, in haste, Jos. W. Walker[6]
Snodgrass later claimed the note said that Poe was "in a state of beastly intoxication", but the original letter proves otherwise.[1]
Snodgrass's first-hand account describes Poe's appearance as "repulsive", with unkempt hair, a haggard, unwashed face and "lusterless and vacant" eyes. His clothing, Snodgrass said, which included a dirty shirt but no vest and unpolished shoes, was worn and did not fit well.[7] Dr. John Joseph Moran, who was Poe's attending physician, gives his own detailed account of Poe's appearance that day: "a stained faded, old bombazine coat, pantaloons of a similar character, a pair of worn-out shoes run down at the heels, and an old straw hat". Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in this condition, and it is believed the clothes he was wearing were not his own,[7] not least because wearing shabby clothes was out of character for Poe.[8]
Moran cared for Poe at the for-profit Washington College Hospital on Broadway and Fayette Street.[9] He was denied any visitors and was confined in a prison-like room with barred windows in a section of the building reserved for drunk people.[10] Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred. One possibility is that he was recalling an encounter with Jeremiah N. Reynolds, a newspaper editor and explorer who may have inspired the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.[11] Another possibility is Henry R. Reynolds, one of the judges overseeing the Fourth Ward Polls at Ryan's Tavern, who may have met Poe on Election Day.[12] Poe may have instead been calling for "Herring", as the author had an uncle-in-law in Baltimore named Henry Herring. In later testimonies Moran avoided reference to Reynolds but mentioned a visit by a "Misses Herring".[13] He also claimed he attempted to cheer up Poe during one of the few times Poe was awake. When Moran told his patient that he would soon be enjoying the company of friends, Poe allegedly replied that "the best thing his friend could do would be to blow out his brains with a pistol".[14]
In Poe's distressed state, he made reference to a wife in Richmond. He may have been delusional, thinking that his wife, Virginia, was still alive, or he may have been referring to Sarah Elmira Royster, to whom he had recently proposed. He did not know what had happened to his trunk of belongings which, it transpired, had been left behind at the Swan Tavern in Richmond.[10] Moran reported that Poe's final words were "Lord, help my poor soul" before dying on October 7, 1849.[15]
Credibility of Moran
Because Poe did not have visitors, Moran was probably the only person to see the author in his last days. Even so, Moran's credibility has been questioned repeatedly, if not considered altogether untrustworthy.[2] Throughout the years after Poe's death, his story changed as he wrote and lectured on the topic. He claimed (in 1875 and again in 1885, for example) that he had immediately contacted Poe's aunt (and mother-in-law), Maria Clemm, to let her know about Poe's death; in fact, he wrote to her only after she had requested it on November 9, almost a full month after the event. He also claimed that Poe had said, quite poetically, as he prepared to draw his last breath: "The arched heavens encompass me, and God has his decree legibly written upon the frontlets of every created human being, and demons incarnate, their goal will be the seething waves of blank despair." The editor of the New York Herald, which published this version of Moran's story, admitted, "We cannot imagine Poe, even if delirious, constructing [such sentences]."[16] Poe biographer William Bittner attributes Moran's claim to a convention of assigning pious last words to console mourners.[17]
Moran's accounts even altered dates. At different points, he claimed Poe was brought to the hospital on October 3 at 5 p.m., on October 6 at 9 a.m., or on October 7 (the day he died) at "10 o'clock in the afternoon". For each published account, he claimed to have the hospital records as reference.[18] A search for hospital records a century later, specifically an official death certificate, found nothing.[19] Some critics claim Moran's inconsistencies and errors were due only to a lapse of memory, an innocent desire to romanticize, or even to senility. At the time he wrote and published his last account in 1885, Moran was 65.[18]
Cause of death
All medical records and documents, including Poe's death certificate, have been lost, if they ever existed.[19] The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed, but many theories exist. Many biographers have addressed the issue and reached different conclusions, ranging from Jeffrey Meyers' assertion that it was hypoglycemia to John Evangelist Walsh's conspiratorial murder plot theory.[20] It has also been suggested that Poe's death might have resulted from suicide related to depression. In 1848, he nearly died from an overdose of laudanum, readily available as a tranquilizer and pain killer. Though it is unclear if this was a true suicide attempt or just a miscalculation on Poe's part, it did not lead to Poe's death a year later.[21]
Snodgrass was convinced that Poe died from alcoholism and did a great deal to popularize this idea. He was a supporter of the temperance movement and found Poe a useful example in his temperance work. However, Snodgrass's writings on the topic have been proven untrustworthy.[2] Moran contradicted Snodgrass by stating in his own 1885 account that Poe did not die under the effect of any intoxicant. Moran claimed that Poe "had not the slightest odor of liquor upon his breath or person".[2] Even so, some newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", euphemisms for deaths from disgraceful causes such as alcoholism.[22] In a study of Poe, a psychologist suggested that Poe had dipsomania.[23]
Poe's characterization as an uncontrollable alcoholic is disputed.[3] His drinking companion for a time, Thomas Mayne Reid, admitted that the two engaged in wild "frolics" but that Poe "never went beyond the innocent mirth in which we all indulge... While acknowledging this as one of Poe's failings, I can speak truly of its not being habitual".[24] Some believe Poe had a severe susceptibility to alcohol and became drunk after one glass of wine.[25] He only drank during difficult periods of his life and sometimes went several months at a time without alcohol.[3] Adding further confusion about the frequency of Poe's use of alcohol was his membership in the Sons of Temperance at the time of his death.[26][27] William Glenn, who administered Poe's pledge, wrote years later that the temperance community had no reason to believe Poe had violated his pledge while in Richmond.[28] Suggestions of a drug overdose have also been proven to be untrue, though it is still often reported. Thomas Dunn English, an admitted enemy of Poe and a trained doctor, insisted that Poe was not a drug user.[29] He wrote: "Had Poe the opium habit when I knew him (before 1846) I should both as a physician and a man of observation, have discovered it during his frequent visits to my rooms, my visits at his house, and our meetings elsewhere – I saw no signs of it and believe the charge to be a baseless slander."[30]
Numerous other causes of death have been proposed over the years, including several forms of rare brain disease or a brain tumor, diabetes, various types of enzyme deficiency, syphilis,[31]apoplexy, delirium tremens, epilepsy and meningeal inflammation.[32] A doctor named John W. Francis examined Poe in May 1848 and believed Poe had heart disease, which Poe later denied.[33] A 2006 test of a sample of Poe's hair provides evidence against the possibility of lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, and similar toxic heavy-metal exposures.[34]Cholera has also been suggested.[35] Poe had passed through Philadelphia in early 1849 during a cholera epidemic. He got sick during his time in the city and wrote a letter to his aunt, Maria Clemm, saying that he may "have had the cholera, or spasms quite as bad".[36]
Because Poe was found on the day of an election, it was suggested as early as 1872[37] that he was the victim of cooping.[38] This was a ballot-box-stuffing scam in which victims were shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn to vote for a political party at multiple locations.[31] Cooping had become the standard explanation for Poe's death in most of his biographies for several decades,[39] though his status in Baltimore may have made him too recognizable for this scam to have worked.[40] More recently, analysis suggesting that Poe's death resulted from rabies has been presented.[41]
Funeral
Poe's funeral was a simple one, held at 4 p.m. on Monday, October 8, 1849.[32] Few people attended the ceremony. Poe's uncle, Henry Herring, provided a simple mahogany coffin, and a cousin, Neilson Poe, supplied the hearse.[42] Moran's wife made his shroud.[43] The funeral was presided over by the Reverend W. T. D. Clemm, cousin of Poe's wife, Virginia. Also in attendance were Dr. Snodgrass, Baltimore lawyer and former University of Virginia classmate Zaccheus Collins Lee, Poe's first cousin Elizabeth Herring and her husband, and former schoolmaster Joseph Clarke. The entire ceremony lasted only three minutes in the cold, damp weather.[42] Reverend Clemm decided not to bother with a sermon because the crowd was too small.[44]Sexton George W. Spence wrote of the weather: "It was a dark and gloomy day, not raining but just kind of raw and threatening."[45] Poe was buried in a cheap coffin that lacked handles, a nameplate, cloth lining, or a cushion for his head.[32]
On October 10, 2009, Poe received a second funeral in Baltimore. Actors portrayed Poe's contemporaries and other long-dead writers and artists. Each paid their respects and read eulogies adapted from their writings about Poe. The funeral included a replica of Poe's casket and wax cadaver. [46]
Burial and reburial
Poe is buried on the grounds of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, now part of the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. Even after his death, he created controversy and mystery.
Poe was originally buried without a headstone towards the rear corner of the churchyard near his grandfather, David Poe, Sr.[47] A headstone of white Italian marble, paid for by Poe's cousin Neilson Poe, was destroyed before it reached the grave when a train derailed and plowed through the monument yard where it was being kept.[32] Instead, it was marked with a sand-stone block that read "No. 80".[48] In 1873, Southern poet Paul Hamilton Hayne visited Poe's grave and published a newspaper article describing its poor condition and suggesting a more appropriate monument. Sara Sigourney Rice, a teacher in Baltimore's public schools, took advantage of renewed interest in Poe's grave site and personally solicited for funds. She even had some of her elocution students give public performances to raise money. Many in Baltimore and throughout the United States contributed; the final $650 came from Philadelphia publisher and philanthropistGeorge William Childs. The new monument was designed by architect George A. Frederick and built by Colonel Hugh Sisson, and included a medallion of Poe by artist Adalbert Volck. All three men were from Baltimore. The total cost of the monument, with the medallion, amounted to slightly more than $1,500.[49] ($31,600 in 2014 dollars)
Poe was reburied on October 1, 1875, at a new location close to the front of the church. A celebration was held at the dedication of the new tomb on November 17.[50] His original burial spot was marked with a large stone donated by Orin C. Painter, though it was originally placed in the wrong spot.[51] Attendees included Neilson Poe, who gave a speech and called his cousin "one of the best hearted men that ever lived", as well as Nathan C. Brooks, John Snodgrass, and John Hill Hewitt.[52] Though several leading poets were invited to the ceremony, Walt Whitman was the only one to attend.[53]Alfred Tennyson contributed a poem which was read at the ceremony:
Fate that once denied him,And envy that once decried him,And malice that belied him,Now cenotaph his fame.[54]
Probably unknown to the reburial crew, the headstones on all the graves, previously facing to the east, had been turned to face the West Gate in 1864.[50] The crew digging up Poe's remains had difficulty finding the right body: they first exhumed a 19-year-old Maryland militiaman, Philip Mosher, Jr.[50] When they correctly located Poe, they opened his coffin and one witness noted: "The skull was in excellent condition—the shape of the forehead, one of Poe's striking features, was easily discerned."[54]
A few years later, the remains of Poe's wife, Virginia, were moved to this spot as well. In 1875, the cemetery in which she lay was destroyed, and she had no kin to claim her remains. William Gill, an early Poe biographer, gathered her bones and stored them in a box he hid under his bed.[55] Virginia's remains were finally buried with her husband's on January 19, 1885, the 76th anniversary of her husband's birth and nearly 10 years after his present monument was erected. George W. Spence, the man who served as sexton during Poe's original burial as well as his exhumation and reburial, attended the rites that brought his body to rest with Virginia and Virginia's mother, Maria Clemm.[56]
Posthumous character assassination
On October 9, the day of Poe's burial, an obituary appeared in the "New York Tribune". Signed only "Ludwig", the obituary floridly alternated between praising the dead author's abilities and eloquence and damning his temperament and ambition. "Ludwig" said that "literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars" but also claimed Poe was known for walking the streets in delirium, muttering to himself and claimed Poe was excessively arrogant, that he assumed all men were villains, and that he was quick to anger. "Ludwig" was later revealed to be Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a former colleague and acquaintance of Poe. Even while Poe was still alive, Griswold had engaged in character assassination.[57][58] Much of his characterization in the obituary was lifted almost verbatim from that of the fictitious Francis Vivian in The Caxtons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.[59] The Ludwig obituary quickly became the standard characterization of Poe.[60]
Griswold also claimed that Poe had asked him to be his literary executor. Griswold had served as an agent for several American authors, but it is unclear whether Poe appointed him to be the executor or whether Griswold became executor through a trick or a mistake by Poe's aunt and mother-in-law, Maria.[61] In 1850 he presented, in collaboration with James Russell Lowell and Nathaniel Parker Willis, a collection of Poe's work that included a biographical article titled "Memoir of the Author", in which Poe was depicted as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman. Many parts of it were believed to have been fabricated by Griswold, and it was denounced by those who had known Poe, including Sarah Helen Whitman, Charles Frederick Briggs, and George Rex Graham.[4] This account became popularly accepted, in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted. It also remained popular because many readers assumed that Poe was similar to his fictional characters[62] or were thrilled at the thought of reading the works of an "evil" man.[55]
A more accurate biography of Poe did not appear until John Henry Ingram's of 1875. Even so, historians continued to use Griswold's depiction as a model for their own biographies of Poe, including W. H. Davenport in 1880, Thomas R. Slicer in 1909, and Augustus Hopkins Strong in 1916. Many used Poe as a cautionary tale against alcohol and drugs.[63] In 1941, Arthur Hobson Quinn presented evidence that Griswold had forged and re-written a number of Poe's letters that were included in his "Memoir of the Author".[64] By then, Griswold's depiction of Poe was entrenched in the mind of the public, not only in America but around the world, and this distorted image of Poe has become part of the Poe legend despite attempts to dispel it.[65][66]
See also
References
Notes
Sources
External links
This page was last edited on 6 June 2017, at 07:40.
This text is based on the Wikipedia article Death of Edgar Allan Poe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Edgar_Allan_Poe which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License available online at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode List of authors: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/wikihistory/wh.php?page_title=Death_of_Edgar_Allan_PoeContents
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (/poU/; 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 the macabre. He is widely 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 earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.[2]
Poe was born in Boston, the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died the following year. Thus orphaned, the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. They never formally adopted him, but Poe was with them well into young adulthood. Tension developed later as John Allan and Edgar repeatedly clashed over debts, including those incurred by gambling, and the cost of secondary education for the young man. Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. Poe quarreled with Allan over the funds for his education and enlisted in the Army in 1827 under an assumed name. It was at this time that his publishing career began, albeit humbly, with the anonymous collection of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". With the death of Frances Allan in 1829, Poe and Allan reached a temporary rapprochement. However, Poe later failed as an officer cadet at West Point, declaring a firm wish to be a poet and writer, and he ultimately parted ways with John 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 among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Richmond in 1836, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. For years, he had been planning to produce his own journal The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, at age 40; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.[3]
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.
Life and career
Early life
He was born Edgar Poe in Boston on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr.. He had an elder brother William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister Rosalie Poe.[5] Their grandfather David Poe Sr. had emigrated from Cavan, Ireland to America around the year 1750.[6] Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play that the couple were performing in 1809.[7] His father abandoned their family in 1810,[8] and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia who dealt in a variety of goods, including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.[9] The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe",[10] though they never formally adopted him.[11]
The Allan family had Poe baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son.[10] The family sailed to Britain in 1815, and Poe attended the grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Scotland (where John 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 (6.4 km) north of London.[12]
Poe moved with the Allans back to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1824, Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.[13] In March 1825, John Allan's uncle and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died,[14] leaving Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000. By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.[15]
Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study ancient and modern languages.[16][17] The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had 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.[18] During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe 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.[19] Poe gave up on the university after a year, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton. He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.[20] At some point, he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet.[21]
Military career
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.[22] He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month.[20] That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention.[23] 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.[24] He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank that a noncommissioned 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. Howard would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan and wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; 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, John 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.[25]
Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.[26] Before entering West Point, Poe moved back 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.[27] Meanwhile, Poe published his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829.[28]
Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830.[29] In October 1830, John Allan married his second wife Louisa Patterson.[30] The marriage and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs led to the foster father finally disowning Poe.[31] 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. Poe tactically pleaded not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing that he would be found guilty.[32]
He 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 that Poe had been writing about commanding officers.[33] 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".[34] He 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.[35]
Publishing career
After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so.[36] He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone[2][37] and was hampered by the lack of an internationalcopyright law.[38] Publishers often produced unauthorized copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans.[37] The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837.[39] There was a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, but many did not last beyond a few issues[40] and publishers often refused to pay their writers, or paid them much later than they promised.[41] Throughout his attempts to live as a writer, Poe repeatedly had to resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.[42]
After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle".[43] The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place 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,[44] but was discharged within a few weeks for having been caught drunk by his boss.[45] Returning to Baltimore, Poe obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia on September 22, 1835, though it is unknown if they were married at that time.[46] He was 26 and she was 13.
He was reinstated by White after promising good behavior, and went back 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.[5] He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he and Virginia Clemm held a Presbyterian wedding ceremony at their Richmond boarding house, with a witness falsely attesting Clemm's age as 21.[46][47]
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838.[48] In the summer of 1839, Poe 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 Southern Literary 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.[49] Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham's Magazine.[50]
In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal called The Stylus.[51] Originally, Poe intended to call the journal The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia. In the June 6, 1840 issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post, Poe bought advertising space for his prospectus: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe."[52] The journal was never produced before Poe's death.
Around this time, he attempted to secure a position with the Tyler administration, claiming that he was a member of the Whig Party.[53] He hoped to be appointed to the Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert,[54] an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas.[55] 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.[56] Though he was promised an appointment, all positions were filled by others.[57]
One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat.[58] She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's 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, sole owner.[59] There he alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.[60] On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. It made Poe a household name almost instantly,[61] though he was paid only $9 for its publication.[62] It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".[63]
The Broadway Journal failed in 1846.[59] Poe moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York, in what is now the Bronx. That home is known today as the "Poe Cottage" on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, where he befriended the Jesuits at St. John's College nearby (now Fordham University).[64] Virginia died there on January 30, 1847.[65] 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.[66]
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 their relationship.[67] Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster.[68]
Death
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to Joseph W. Walker who found him.[69] He was taken to the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning.[70] Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and, oddly, 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. Some sources say that Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul".[70] All medical records have been lost, including his death certificate.[71]
Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.[72] The actual cause of death remains a mystery.[73] Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,[3]cholera,[74] and rabies.[75] One theory dating from 1872 suggests that cooping was the cause of Poe's death, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.[76]
Griswold's "Memoir"
The day that Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece 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."[77] "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot 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.[78]
Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunken, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence.[78] Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict.[79] Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,[80] but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred 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.[81] Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.[82]
Literary style and themes
Genres
Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic,[83] a genre that he followed to appease the public taste.[84] 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.[85] Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism[86] which Poe strongly disliked.[87] He referred to followers of the transcendental movement as "Frog-Pondians", after the pond on Boston Common,[88][89] and ridiculed their writings as " metaphor—run mad,"[90] lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake".[87] Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them".[91]
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.[84] "Metzengerstein" is the first story that Poe is known to have published[92] and his first foray into horror, but it was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre.[93] Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".[94]
Poe wrote much of his work using themes aimed specifically at mass-market tastes.[95] To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences, such as phrenology[96] and physiognomy.[97]
Literary theory
Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle".[98] He disliked didacticism[99] and allegory,[100] 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.[101] He believed that work of quality should be brief and focus on a specific single effect.[98] To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.[102]
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."[103] Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".[104]
Legacy
Literary influence
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.[105] Poe's caustic reviews earned him the reputation of being a "tomahawk man".[106] 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.[107] Poe correctly predicted that Longfellow's reputation and style of poetry would decline, concluding, "We grant him high qualities, but deny him the Future".[108]
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.[109] 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 throughout Europe.[110]
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?"[111] The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars".[112] 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.[113] Science fiction author H. G. Wells noted, "Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago."[114] In 2013, The Guardian cited The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket as one of the greatest novels ever written in the English language, and noted its influence on later authors such as Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle, B. Traven, and David Morrell.[115]
Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned imitators.[116] 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.[117]
Even so, Poe has received not only praise, but criticism as well. This is partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and its influence upon his reputation.[109]William Butler Yeats was occasionally critical of Poe and once called him "vulgar".[118]TranscendentalistRalph Waldo Emerson reacted to "The Raven" by saying, "I see nothing in it",[119] and derisively referred to Poe as "the jingle man".[120]Aldous Huxley wrote that Poe's writing "falls into vulgarity" by being "too poetical"—the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger.[121]
It is believed that only 12 copies have survived of Poe's first book Tamerlane and Other Poems. In December 2009, one copy sold at Christie's, New York for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.[122]
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,[123][124] as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox.[125][126] Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition.[127] For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science,[127] but insisted that it was still true[128] and considered it to be his career masterpiece.[129] Even so, Eureka is full of scientific errors. In particular, Poe's suggestions ignored Newtonian principles regarding the density and rotation of planets.[130]
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.[131] 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.[132] 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.[131] The sensation that Poe created with his cryptography stunts played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.[133]
Poe had an influence on cryptography beyond increasing public interest during his lifetime. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, was heavily influenced by Poe.[134] 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.[135]
In popular culture
As a character
The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often representing the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and exploiting his personal struggles.[136] Many such depictions also blend in with characters from his stories, suggesting that Poe and his characters share identities.[137] Often, fictional depictions of Poe use his mystery-solving skills in such novels as The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.[138]
Preserved homes, landmarks, and museums
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
