Chapter I: His Life

Poe was of Irish extraction. His great-grandfather, John Poe, came to America about 1745 and settled near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. John Poe’s son David (known in the annals of Baltimore as ‘old General Poe’) rendered notable services to his country during the Revolution. Lafayette remembered him well and during a visit to Baltimore in 1824 asked to be taken to the place where Poe was buried. ‘Ici repose un cœur noble,’ said Lafayette as he knelt and kissed the old patriot’s grave.

Of General Poe’s six children, the eldest, David, was to have been bred to the law, but his tastes led him first to the amateur and then to the professional stage. He married a young English actress, Mrs. Elizabeth (Arnold) Hopkins. They had three children, William, Edgar, and Rosalie. Edgar (afterwards known as Edgar Allan) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809.

The young family suffered the petty miseries incident to the life of strolling players, and became at one time very poor. The circumstances of David Poe’s death and the place of his burial are unknown. When Mrs. Poe died at Richmond, Virginia, in December, 1811, Edgar was taken by Mrs. John Allan, the wife of a highly respected merchant of that city, and was brought up as a child of the house.

The Allans were in England from 1815 to 1820. During this time Poe was placed at Manor House School, Stoke Newington. He afterwards attended the English and Classical School in Richmond and on February 14, 1826, matriculated at the University of Virginia. His connection with the University ceased in December of the same year. He left behind him a reputation for marked abilities, but he is said to have lost caste by his recklessness in card playing. Allan positively refused to pay the youth’s gambling debts, which amounted to twenty-five hundred dollars.

Placed in Allan’s counting-house, Poe was unhappy and rebellious, and finally disappeared. He declared in after years that he went abroad to offer his services to the Greeks. What he really did was to enlist in the United States army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. During the summer of 1827 he was with Battery H of the First Artillery at Fort Independence, Boston. In August of that year he published _Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian_. The edition was small and the pamphlet has become one of the rarest of bibliographical curiosities.

Battery H was sent to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, in October, 1827, and a year later to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. At some time during this period Poe must have made his whereabouts known to the Allans. Mrs. Allan, who was tenderly attached to Poe, may have succeeded in bringing about an understanding between the youth and his foster father. When she died (in February, 1829) Poe lost his best friend.

Allan, however, did what he could to forward the young man’s newest ambition, which was to enter the Military Academy at West Point. He paid for a substitute in the army and wrote letters to men who were influential in such matters, with the result that Poe was enrolled at the Academy on July 1, 1830. He gave his age as nineteen years and five months. His prematurely old look led to the invention of the story that the appointment was really procured for Poe’s son, but the son having died the father had taken his place.

While the question of the appointment was pending, Poe spent some time in Baltimore and there published his second volume of verse, _Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems_ (1829).

The accounts of his life at the Academy are not so divergent as to be contradictory. One classmate noted the youth’s censorious manner: ‘I never heard him speak in terms of praise of any English writer, living or dead.’ Excelling in French and mathematics, Poe by intentional neglect of military duty brought about his own dismissal. He was court-martialled and left West Point on March 7, 1831. He had previously taken subscriptions among his friends for a new book of verse. It was published in New York (1831) under the title of _Poems_, ‘second edition,’ and was dedicated to ‘the U. S. Corps of Cadets,’ who are said to have been disappointed at finding in its pages none of the local squibs with which the author had been wont to amuse them.

Poe is next heard of in Baltimore, where he seems to have made his home with his father’s sister, Mrs. Maria Clemm, a widow with one child, Virginia. In 1833 ‘The Saturday Visiter’ of Baltimore offered two prizes--one hundred dollars for a story, fifty for a poem. Poe submitted a manuscript volume entitled ‘Tales of the Folio Club,’ and was given one award for his famous ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ Had not the conditions of the contest precluded giving both prizes to the same person, he would have received the other award for his poem ‘The Coliseum.’

Through John P. Kennedy, one of the judges in the contest, Poe came into relations with T. W. White, the proprietor of ‘The Southern Literary Messenger,’ published at Richmond. His contributions were heartily welcomed. White then invited Poe to become his editorial associate. The offer was accepted and Poe went to Richmond. Mrs. Clemm and Virginia followed, and in May, 1836, Poe was married to his cousin. A private marriage is said to have taken place at Baltimore the preceding September.

The arrangement entered into by White and Poe was most propitious. The proprietor of the ‘Messenger’ had obtained the services of a young man with a positive genius for the work in hand,--a young man who was able to contribute such tales as ‘Berenice,’ ‘Morella,’ ‘Hans Pfaall,’ ‘Metzengerstein,’ besides poems, miscellanies, and caustic book-criticisms. On the other hand, Poe had, if a small, at least a regular income. He could not buy luxury with a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars, but it was a beginning, and an increase was promised. Moreover, he was in the hands of a man who regarded him with affection no less than admiration. Unfortunately the arrangement was not to last. Poe had become the victim of a hereditary vice.[25] Whether he drank much or little is of less consequence than the fact that after a period of indulgence he was wholly unfitted for work. Once when Poe was temporarily in Baltimore, White wrote him that if he returned to the office it must be with the understanding that all engagements were at an end the moment he ‘got drunk.’ Kennedy explained Poe’s leaving the ‘Messenger’ thus: He was ‘irregular, eccentric, and querulous, and soon gave up his place.’

From Richmond, Poe went to New York, attracted by some promise in connection with a magazine. He lived in Carmine Street, and Mrs. Clemm contributed to the family support by taking boarders. In July, 1838, was published _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_. A month later Poe removed to Philadelphia.

He contributed to annuals and magazines and had a hand in a piece of hack-work, _The Conchologist’s First Book_ (1839). This same year he became assistant editor of ‘Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly,’ a periodical owned by the actor, William E. Burton, and held his position until June, 1840. The irregularity and querulousness which Kennedy had remarked led to misunderstandings. How the two men differed in policy becomes plain from a letter to Poe in which Burton says: ‘You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill feelings towards your brother authors.’ There was a quarrel, and Poe, who had some command of the rhetoric of abuse, described Burton as ‘a blackguard and a villain.’

The year 1840 was notable in the history of American letters, for then appeared the first collected edition of Poe’s prose writings, _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_. The edition, of seven hundred and fifty copies, was in two volumes and contained twenty-five stories, among them ‘Morella,’ ‘William Wilson,’ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ ‘Ligeia,’ ‘Berenice,’ and ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’.

Poe, a born ‘magazinist,’ cherished the ambition of editing a periodical of his own in which, as he phrased it, he could ‘kick up a dust.’ He secured a partner and actually announced that ‘The Penn Magazine’ would begin publication on January 1, 1841. Compelled to postpone his project, he undertook the editorship of ‘Graham’s Magazine,’ a new monthly formed by uniting the ‘Gentleman’s,’ which Graham had bought, and ‘The Casket.’ From February, 1841, to June, 1842, Poe contributed to every number of the new magazine, printing, among other things, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ and ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Griswold succeeded him in the editorial chair. Poe gave as a reason for resigning his place ‘disgust with the namby-pamby character of the magazine.’ In the hope of bettering his fortune, he sought a place in the Philadelphia Custom House, but was unsuccessful.

Notwithstanding frequent set-backs, he had it in his power at any time to attract public notice. In 1843 he won a hundred-dollar prize for his story ‘The Gold-Bug,’ printed in the ‘Dollar Newspaper,’ and he lectured with success on ‘The Poets and Poetry of America.’ But the field was barren and Poe determined on going to New York. Within a week after his arrival in that city (April, 1844) he printed in ‘The Sun’ his famous ‘Balloon Hoax.’ In October he began work on ‘The Evening Mirror,’ Willis’s paper, and on January 29, 1845, ‘The Raven’ appeared in its columns and was the poetical sensation of the day. The next month he lectured on American Poetry in the library of the New York Historical Society. Dissatisfied with the ‘Mirror,’ he accepted a proposition from C. F. Briggs to become one of the editors of ‘The Broadway Journal.’ Later Poe became the sole editor, and for a brief time enjoyed the ambition of his life, the control of a paper of his own. He is said to have doubled the circulation in the four months during which he filled the editorial chair. Unfortunately he lacked capital and could by no means secure it. ‘The Broadway Journal’ stopped publication.

While editing the ‘Journal’ Poe was invited to read an original poem before the Boston Lyceum. He gave a juvenile piece, and when criticised, defended himself with curious want of tact. That he might lose no opportunity to alienate his contemporaries, he began publishing in ‘Godey’s Lady’s Book’ a series of papers entitled ‘The Literati,’ in which he gave free rein to his propensity to ‘kick up a dust.’ The irony of his situation might well excite pity. He who most loathed a combination of literature and fashion plates was driven for support to the journals which made such a combination their chief feature.

At the close of 1845 was published _The Raven and Other Poems_, the first collected edition of Poe’s verse. Occasionally the poet was seen at literary gatherings, where he left the most agreeable impression by his manner, appearance, and conversation. But his fortunes steadily declined, and in 1846, after he had moved to Fordham, a suburb of New York, he fell into desperate straits. His frail little wife, always an invalid, grew steadily worse. An appeal was made through the journals in behalf of the unfortunate family. Mrs. Poe died on January 30, 1847. Her husband’s grief was so poignant that it is with amazement one reads of the strange affairs of the heart following this event.

Recovering from the severe illness which followed his wife’s death, Poe resumed work. He lectured and he wrote. _Eureka_ was published early in 1847. The consuming desire to own and edit a magazine was no less consuming, and he made some progress towards founding ‘The Stylus.’

The summer of 1849 Poe spent in Richmond and was received with cordiality. He proposed marriage to Mrs. Shelton of that city, a wealthy widow, somewhat older than himself, and was accepted. On the last of September he started for New York to get Mrs. Clemm and bring her to Richmond. He was found almost unconscious on October 3 at Baltimore, in a saloon used as a voting place, was taken to a hospital, and died at five o’clock on the morning of October 7, 1849.