Edgar Allan Poe (19 January 1809 – 7 October 1849) was an American writer, actor, and literary critic from Richmond, Virginia. He was the first American writer to earn a living through writing alone, and he was frequently financially troubled, dying in Baltimore after a life of alcoholism and drug abuse in 1849 at the age of 40.
Biography[]
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809, the son of two touring actors; his mother was an immigrant to the United States from England who had arrived in the United States at the age of nine. His family lived in Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere during their theatrical travels, and his father was a drinker who would abandon the family and vanish without a trace in 1810 (his father either felt jealous that his wife was a better actor than him, or was bothered by the worry that Poe was not his own son). Poe's mother died of tuberculosis in 1811 at the age of 24, and Edgar was taken in by the Allan family of Richmond, Virginia, adopting their surname as his middle name, despite not being formally adopted. In Poe's adolescence, he developed a strain with his adoptive family, as he did not want to work in his foster father's tobacco business. He was given little money and sent to the University of Virginia in 1826, but debts piled up, Poe became a gambler, and he had no choice but to leave university after one year, as his foster father refused to pay his bills.
Poe as a cadet at West Point, 1830
Poe decided to enlist in the US Army in 1827, and he began to send poems out to journals. He was promoted to Sergeant-Major in 1829 and decided to go to West Point, seeking his foster father's help through a letter of recommendation; however, Allan's letter was cold and emphasized that Poe was not his heir. The letter was enough to get Poe into West Point, but he was very unhappy, deliberately neglected his duties, and was dismissed in 1831. However, a group of cadets provided subscription money to pay for an edition of his poems. He returned to Baltimore, where his aunt lived, and he nursed his dying older brother and began to write stories. His own drinking began to lead to troublesome behavior, and he began to use the drug laudanum, which had been introduced to him by his brother.
In 1835, the 27-year-old Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was 13 years old at the time. The marriage was due to fear, as he feared that he would lose his home, and they needed income after the death of Poe's brother and his grandmother (who had received her husband's veteran pension for his service in hte American Revolutionary War); he also wanted to assume responsibility for raising Clemm. Poe then began what would become a difficult career, working at journals until he was fired for his behavior, often associated with his alcoholism.
Poe's reputation as eccentric and unreliable affected his chances of work, and he and his wife left Philadelphia for New York with just $11. Virginia Clemm was sickly, and Poe wrote The Raven to face the loss he knew was coming, selling it for $10. It brought him some success and attention, and he got a job with a magazine before returning to his alcoholism. In 1847, Virginia Clemm died at the age of 24, and Poe had a breakdown before recovering with the help of friends; the death of young women became a recurrent theme in his works.
In 1849, Poe headed to Richmond with the goal of starting a new magazine, and he became very sick along the way. He managed to recover and gave a lecture, and, in Baltimore, an old friend got a note to come help him. His friend found Poe stretched upon a plank across some barrels on a sidewalk in the rain behind a tavern, and Poe was penniless. Poe fell into a coma followed by tremors, and he died on 7 October 1849 at the age of 40. He was buried through the charity of the medical students. Long after his death, his works became hallmarks of American Romanticism, as well as some of the most famous and acclaimed short stories.