Edgar Allan Poe: Tragic Life & Literary Legacy

1. Edgar Allan Poe Jan. 19, 1809 ~ Oct. 7, 1849

2. Poe’s Childhood • Poe’s parents were both traveling actors. • His mother was Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, but she went by Eliza. • His father was David Poe, Jr. • Together, Eliza and David had three children.

3. Poe’s Childhood ~ Continued • Edgar was the second of three children. • He had an older brother, Leonard, and a younger sister, Rosalie. • Before Poe turned a year old, his father abandoned the family. • Only a couple of years later, on December 8, 1811, Poe’s mother died of tuberculosis. • The three siblings were sent to different foster homes. • Edgar was taken in by John and Frances Allan.

4. Poe’s Childhood ~ Continued • John Allan was a wealthy tobacco merchant who tried to raise Poe to be a businessman and Virginia gentleman. • However, Poe wanted to be a poet like his childhood hero, the British poet Lord Byron. • By the age of 13, Poe had enough poetry to publish a book, but his headmaster advised against it.

5. Poe’s Young Adulthood • Poe attended the University of Virginia where he showed potential for becoming a great artist or a great writer. • Because John Allan provided Poe with less than a third of what he needed to pay for school, Poe soon took up gambling and found himself deep in debt.

6. Poe’s Young Adulthood ~ Continued • In fact, he was so poor that he had to burn the furniture in his room to keep warm that first winter. • At the age of 18, Poe published his first book, Tamerlane, and he joined the United States Army under an assumed name (Edgar A. Perry) so that debtors couldn’t find him. • Two years after joining the Army, Poe was summoned home to see Frances Allan who was dying of tuberculosis. She was buried by the time he arrived.

7. Poe’s Young Adulthood ~ Continued • John Allan mustered up just enough kindness to help Poe gain admittance to the United States Military Academy at West Point. • After only eight months, however, Poe was expelled from West Point, largely on purpose out of hatred towards Mr. Allan. • Without any money or family, Poe went to Baltimore to call on his biological father’s family for help.

8. Poe’s Young Adulthood ~ Continued • Poe was taken in by an aunt, Maria Clemm • Very quickly, Poe found himself in love with Mrs. Clemm’s daughter, Virginia (his first cousin).

9. Poe’s Young Adulthood ~ Continued • Still struggling financially, Poe worked by publishing short stories in magazines. • His efforts weren’t in vain because, eventually, he was hired as an editor at Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, VA. • Within a year, Poe helped make the Messenger the most popular magazine in the south.

10. Poe’s Adulthood • At the age of 26, Poe brought Maria and Virginia Clemm to Richmond to be with him. • Poe married Virginia when she was not yet 13 years old, although the marriage certificate says that she was 21. • His marriage to Virginia was a very happy and loving one. • He soon became dissatisfied at the Messenger and spent several years searching for steady work.

11. Poe’s Adulthood ~ Continued • Unfortunately, tragedy struck one night as the family was singing together at home. • Virginia coughed up a tiny drop of blood, • which indicated she had contracted tuberculosis. • Virginia would fight the disease for five years before it would take her life on January 30, 1847 (24). • She was the third woman Poe lost to tuberculosis.

12. Poe’s Adulthood ~ Continued • Before Virginia’s death, Poe had found great success and fame with his January 1845 publication of “The Raven.” He also published two books that year and bought out a magazine company, although the magazine venture failed. • After Virginia’s death, Poe lost his ability to write for quite a while, and he lived only two more years himself.

13. Poe’s final years • In his final years, Poe loved a couple of women, though none captured his heart the way Virginia had. • In route to Philadelphia to see a childhood sweetheart, Poe stopped in Baltimore and disappeared for five days. • He was found outside a polling place where elections were being held and was taken to Washington College Hospital where he died on Oct. 7, 1849.

14. How We Remember Poe • Edgar Allan Poe is credited with writing the first modern detective story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” • Poe is well-known for writing chilling short stories, including “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” • Poe is also credited with unique poetry such as “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” • Poe mastered the genre of science fiction and perfected the psychological horror story.

15. “It’s because I liked Edgar Allan Poe’s stories so much that I began to make suspense films.”~Alfred Hitchcock