Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, in 1809, in Boston, in the state of Massachusetts. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins and father, David Poe, were both actors. He had a younger sister, Rosalie and older brother William Henry. Poe’s parents died before he reached three years and Frances and John Allan, took him in as a foster child. The couple lived in Richmond, Virginia (Poets.org, 1). As a successful tobacco exporter, John Allan was able to take Poe to good boarding schools, and Edgar later proceeded to the University of Virginia. He studied poetry and Latin. His hobbies included swimming and acting. However, he left the university before completing his first year due to gambling debts, which Allan refused to pay. He went back to Richmond for a while and after learning of his sweetheart’s marriage, he moved to Boston in 1827 and enrolled in the Army.

He used another name, Edgar A Perry and claimed to be twenty-two years old at the age of eighteen. His first service was in Boston Harbor at Fort Independence for five dollars monthly. His first published manuscript, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was a compilation of poetry in forty pages, was launched that year. The book did not receive enough attention, resulting in the print of fifty copies only. He was later promoted as a tradesman, with double in his monthly pay. Poe served in the army for only two years, leaving before his five-year term (Giordano, 1). However, the lieutenant in charge would not let Poe be discharged until he and Allan reconciled. Allan, on the other hand, did not show any initiative and ignored all letters from Poe. After his foster mother’s death in 1829, Poe and Allan reconciled. Allan agreed to help Poe be enrolled, and thereby attain a United States Military Academy appointment in West Point. In 15 April 1829, after acquiring a replacement, he was finally discharged. Before moving to the academy, he went to Baltimore in order to seek residence with his aunt, who was a widow. At that time, Poe released a subsequent volume, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems.

In 1 July 1830, he moved to West Point where he enrolled as a cadet. In October of the same year, Allan married Louisa Patterson. However, this resulted in Allan disowning Poe, over disagreements about Allan’s children, born from affairs. Later, he purposely caused his dismissal from the academy in 1831. He then moved to New York, which was the location where he released a third book, containing a collection of poems, titled Poems. This book had been financed by cadets from West Point, where one hundred and seventy dollars had been raised. He went back to Baltimore, where his brother died in 1 August 1981, due to health problems associated with alcoholism. Poe sought a career in writing, becoming one of the first known Americans who sought a living from writing only (Poets.org, 3). During this period, writers had a hard time, as publishers either refused to pay them or paid long after the time they agreed they would pay them.

Poe eventually got to a point of borrowing and asking for assistance in other forms. Apart from poetry, he also wrote stories under the Philadelphia Publication. He received a prize from Baltimore Saturday Visiter, for a short story known as MS Found in a Bottle. This took the attention of John Kennedy who helped Poe with the production of some other stories (Giordano, 1). He also introduced Thomas White, the Southern Literary Messenger’s editor, where with his help; Poe was assigned as the assistant editor, in August 1835. This did not last long, however, as after a number of weeks Poe was discharged after being found drunk during working hours. Once again, he returned to Baltimore, where he secretly married his aunt’s daughter, Virginia Clemm on 22 September 1835. At the time of the marriage, Virginia was the age of thirteen. However, on the marriage certificate, she was listed as a twenty one year old. Poe, on the other hand, was twenty-six years old.

He moved back to Richmond with his spouse and with his aunt, where he was taken back by the Messenger after promising that he would behave well. According to Poe, the messenger increased at 3500 from 700. His works in the paper consisted of book reviews, critiques, poems and stories. In 16 May 1836, he and Virginia had another wedding ceremony, done in public. In 1838, he released The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket that was received acclaim and criticism in equal measure. In 1839, he made a switch to the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, where he was appointed as the associate editor. His works in this magazine included stories, articles and reviews, which enhanced his early standing as a incisive columnist. In the same year, he published another collection, titled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, in two volumes (Giordano, 1). This collection, however, attained mixed reviews, and it was not successful. In a year, he had left the magazine and shifted to Graham’s Magazine where he became the assistant (Bio-True Story, 2).

In 1842, Virginia was diagnosed of Tuberculosis, but after treatment, she did not recover fully. This led to Poe’s increased alcoholism, and he left the magazine, attempting to get a new position, in a government post. He worked with the Evening Mirror and later Broadway Journal, where he became the sole owner. In 1845, he published another poem, The Raven, which was shown in the Evening Mirror. The poem was popular and was later printed in The American Review: A Whig Journal. After the failure of the Broadway Journal, he shifted to a cottage in New York where Virginia later died in 30 January 1847. Poe moved back to Richmond. He died on 7 October 1849, in the Washington College Hospital. He had been taken earlier to the hospital, from the streets, where he had been found in distress

References

Bio-True Story. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe: biography. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160?page=2

Poe Museum. (2010). The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe. Retrieved from http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php

Giordano, Robert. (2012). An Exploration of Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Retrieved from http://www.poestories.com/

Poets.org. (2012). Edgar Allan Poe. Retrieved from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/130