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Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
 Poe's
parents, David Poe Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, were
touring actors; both died before he was 3 years old, and he was
taken into the home of John Allan, a prosperous merchant in
Richmond, Va., and baptized Edgar Allan Poe. In 1826 he entered
the University of Virginia but stayed for only a year. Although
a good student, he ran up large gambling debts that Allan
refused to pay. Allan prevented his return to the university and
broke off Poe's engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster, his Richmond
sweetheart. Lacking any means of support, Poe enlisted in the
army. He had, however, already written and printed (at his own
expense) his first book,Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), verses
written in the manner of Byron.
Temporarily reconciled, Allan secured Poe's release from the
army and his appointment to West Point but refused to provide
financial support. After 6 months Poe apparently contrived to be
dismissed from West Point for disobedience of orders. His fellow
cadets, however, contributed the funds for the publication of
Poems by Edgar A. Poe ... Second Edition (1831), actually a
third edition -- after Tamerlane and Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and
Minor Poems (1829).
Poe next took up residence in Baltimore with his widowed aunt,
Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, and turned to fiction
as a way to support himself. In 1832 the Philadelphia Saturday
Courier published five of his stories -- all comic or satiric --
and in 1833, MS. Found in a Bottle won a $50 prize given by the
Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Poe, his aunt, and Virginia moved to
Richmond in 1835, and he became editor of the Southern Literary
Messenger and married Virginia, who was not yet 14 years old.
Poe published fiction, notably his most horrifying tale,
Berenice in the Messenger, but most of his contributions were
serious, analytical, and critical reviews that earned him
respect as a critic. The January 1837 issue of the
Messenger announced Poe's withdrawal as editor but also included
the first installment of his long prose tale, The Narrative of
Arthur Gordon Pym, five of his reviews, and two of his poems.
This was to be the paradoxical pattern for Poe's career: success
as an artist and editor but failure to satisfy his employers and
to secure a livelihood.
First in New York City (1837), then in Philadelphia (1838-44),
and again in New York (1844-49), Poe sought to establish himself
as a force in literary journalism, but with only moderate
success. His theory of short fiction is best exemplified
in Ligeia (1838), the tale Poe considered his finest, and The
Fall Of The House Of Usher (1839), The Murders in the Rue Morgue
(1841) is sometimes considered the first detective story.
Virginia's death in January 1847 was a heavy blow, but Poe
continued to write and lecture. In the summer of 1849 he
revisited Richmond, lectured, and was accepted anew by the
fiancee he had lost in 1826. After his return north he was found
unconscious on a Baltimore street. In a brief obituary the
Baltimore Clipper reported that Poe had died of "congestion of
the brain."
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