Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to narrative forms of the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is believed to possibly be from drug related problems.

Edgar Allan Poe was born to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. Both parents died when Edgar was 3 years old. Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen," it is actually "Allan," after this family.

After attending the Manor School at Stoke Newington, Poe attended the Reverend John Bransby-s Manor House boarding school in the fall of 1818. The Manor House was located in the village of Stoke Newington, only four miles north of London. Poe moved back to the Allans in Richmond in 1820. After serving an apprenticeship in Pawtucket, Poe registered at the University of Virginia in 1826, but only stayed there for one year. He became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts Poe had acquired while trying to get more spending money, so Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private using the name Edgar A. Perry on May 26, 1827. That same year, he released his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, which now is such a rare book that a surviving copy has been sold for $200,000. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of sergeant major, Poe was discharged.

In 1829, Poe's foster mother, Frances Allan, died, and he published his second book, Al Aaraf. As his foster mother's dying wish, Poe reconciled with his foster father, who coordinated an appointment for him to the United States Military Academy at West Point. At West Point however, Poe supposedly deliberately disobeyed orders and was dismissed. After that, Poe and his foster father disowned each other until the latter's death on March 6, 1831.

Poe next moved to Baltimore, Maryland with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Poe's first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm. Poe wrote fiction to support himself, and in December 1835, began editing the Southern Literary Messenger for Thomas W. White in Richmond. On May 16, 1836, he married Virginia, who was 13 at the time.

Career

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym was published and widely reviewed in 1838. In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published a large number of articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing the reputation as a trenchant critic that he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes. Though not a financial success, it was a milestone in the history of American literature, collecting such classic Poe tales as "The Fall of the House of Usher", "MS. Found in a Bottle", "Berenice", "Ligeia" and "William Wilson". Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as assistant editor at Graham's Magazine.

The evening of January 20, 1842, the lovely Virginia broke a blood vessel while singing and playing the piano. Blood began to rush forth from her mouth. It was the first sign of consumption, now more commonly known as tuberculosis. She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York, where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal. There he became involved in a noisy public feud with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation.

The Broadway Journal failed in 1846. Poe moved to a cottage in the Fordham section of The Bronx, New York. He loved the Jesuits at Fordham University and frequently strolled about its campus conversing with both students and faculty. Fordham University's bell tower even inspired him to write "The Bells." The Poe Cottage is on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, and is open to the public. Virginia died there in 1847. Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior; however there is also strong evidence that Miss Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship. He then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with a childhood sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster, who, by that time, was a widow.

Death

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance," according to the man who found him. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died early on the morning of October 7. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred. One Poe scholar, W. T. Bandy, has suggested that he may instead have called for "Herring," (Poe's uncle was called Henry Herring). Some sources say Poe's final words were " Lord help my poor soul."

The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed. Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, an acquaintance of Poe who was among those who saw him in his last days, was convinced that Poe died as a result of alcoholism and did a great deal to popularize this interpretation of the events. He was, however, a supporter of the temperance movement who found Poe a useful example in his work; later scholars have shown that his account of Poe's death distorts facts to support his theory. Dr. John Moran, the physician who attended Poe, stated in his own 1885 account that "Edgar Allan Poe did not die under the effect of any intoxicant, nor was the smell of liquor upon his breath or person." This was, however, only one of several sometimes contradictory accounts of Poe's last days he published over the years, so his testimony cannot be considered entirely reliable.

Numerous other theories have been proposed over the years, including several forms of rare brain disease, diabetes, various types of enzyme deficiency, syphilis, the idea that Poe was shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn in a ballot-box-stuffing scam during the election that was held on the day he was found, and, more recently, rabies. The rabies death theory was proposed by Dr. R. Michael Benitez, and is based upon the fact that Poe's symptoms before death are similar to those displayed in a classic case of rabies. Cats play a prominent part in many of his stories, and it is conjectured that he was accidentally bitten by a rabid pet.

In the absence of contemporary documentation (all surviving accounts are either incomplete or published years after the event; even Poe's death certificate, if one was ever made out, has been lost), it is likely that the cause of Poe's death will never be known.

Poe is buried on the grounds of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, now part of the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.

Even after death Poe has created controversy and mystery. Because of his fame, school children collected money for a new burial spot closer to the front gate. He was reburied on October 1, 1875. A celebration was held at the dedication of the new tomb on November 17. Likely unknown to the reburial crew, however, the headstones on all the graves, previously facing to the east, were turned to face the West Gate in 1864. Therefore, as it was described in a seemingly fitting turn of events:

In digging on what they erroneously thought to be the right of the General Poe the committee naturally first struck old Mrs. Poe who had been buried thirty-six years before Edgar's mother-in-law; they tried again and presumably struck Mrs. Clemm who had been buried in 1876 only four years earlier. Henry's Poe's brother foot stone, it there, was respected for they obviously skipped over him and settled for the next body, which was on the Mosher lot. Because of the excellent condition of the teeth, he would certainly seem to have been the remains of Philip Mosher Jr, of the Maryland Militia, age 19.

Poe's grave site has become a popular tourist attraction. Beginning in 1949, the grave has been visited every year in the early hours of Poe's birthday, January 19th, by a mystery man known endearingly as the Poe Toaster. It has been reported that a man draped in black with a silver-tipped cane, kneels at the grave for a toast of Martel Cognac and leaves the half-full bottle and three red roses. The three red roses supposedly are in memory of Poe himself, his mother-in-law, and his wife Virginia.

Selected Poe-related films

• Edgar Allan Poe (1909)
• The Gold Bug (1910) - France
• The Pit and the Pendulum (1910) - Italy
• The Bells (1912)
• The Avenging Conscience (1914)
• The Raven (1915) - This film is more of a Poe biography, however a brief segment of the film is indeed an abbreviated performance the namesake poem.
• The Tell Tale Heart (1928)
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)
• The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942)
• Tell-Tale Heart (1953)
• The Phantom of the RueMorgue (1953)
• House of Usher (1960)
• The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)
• The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
• The Premature Burial (1962)
• Tales of Terror (1962)
• The Raven (1963)
• The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
• Danza macabra (1964)
• The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)
• Spirits of the Dead (Histoires extraordinaires), 3 segments: Metzengerstein by Roger Vadim, William Wilson by Louis Malle and Toby Dammit by Federico Fellini, (1968) - France / Italy
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
• The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974)
• Vincent (film) (1982), a short film by Tim Burton, about a boy named Vincent Malloy, who is obsessed with Poe and Vincent Price.
• The Raven...Nevermore (1999)
• The Raven (short film - 2003)
• The Death of Poe (2005)
• Poe (2006)

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