Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe
This daguerreotype of Poe was taken in 1848 when he was 39, a year before his death.
Born	January 19, 1809 Boston, Massachusetts USA
Died	October 7, 1849(1849-10-07) (aged 40) Baltimore, Maryland USA
Occupation	Poet, short story writer, literary critic
Genre	Horror fiction, Crime fiction, Detective fiction
Literary movement	Romanticism
Spouse	Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe
Relatives	David Poe, Jr. and Elizabeth Arnold Poe (birth parents), John Allan and Frances Allen (foster parents)

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, 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 the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, heart disease, brain congestion and other agents.

Life and career

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This bust of Edgar Allan Poe is found at the University of Virginia where, having lost his tuition due to a gambling problem, he dropped out in 1827.

Early life

Poe was born Edgar Poe 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. He had a Mayflower descent, though, from Edward Fuller, through an American great-grandmother. The second of three children, his elder brother was William Henry Leonard Poe, and younger sister, Rosalie Poe. His father abandoned their family in 1810. His mother died a year later from "consumption"(TB). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloths, wheat, tombstones, and slaves. The Allans served as a foster family but never formally adopted Poe, though they gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe."

The Allan family baptised young Edgar as Episcopalian in 1812 and John Allan alternatively spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son. The family, which included Allan's wife Frances Valentine Allan, traveled to England in 1815, and Edgar sailed with them. He attended the Grammar School in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) for a short period in 1815, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. He studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until the summer of 1817. He was then entered at Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb four miles north of London. Bransby is mentioned by name as a character in "William Wilson."

Poe moved back with the Allans to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1825, John Allan's friend and business benefactor William Galt, said to be the wealthiest man in Richmond, died and left Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at three quarters of a million dollars. By the summer of 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named "Moldavia." Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year old University of Virginia in February 1826 with the intent to study languages. The University, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol; these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and to report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos and there was a high drop-out rate. During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave up on the University after a year and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned of his sweetheart Royster having married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer. At some point, he was using the name Henry Le Rennett as a pseudonym.

Military career

Reduced to destitution, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private, using the name "Edgar A. Perry" and claiming he was 22 years old (he was 18) on May 26, 1827. He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month. That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems attributed only as "by a Bostonian." Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention. Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer," an officer who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of sergeant major for artillery (the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can achieve), Poe sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan. Howard wrote a letter to Allan, but he was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829 and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, John Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829 after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him. Before entering West Point, Poe moved to Baltimore, Maryland to stay with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, her daughter, Poe's first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, and his brother Henry. Meanwhile, Poe published his second book, Al Aaraaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829.

Poe traveled to West Point, and took his oath on July 1, 1830. John Allan married a second time. The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning Poe. Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. Poe tactically plead not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing he would be found guilty. He left for New York in February 1831, and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had been writing about commanding officers. Printed by Elam Bliss of New York, it was labeled as "Second Edition" and included a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated." The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems including early versions of "To Helen," "Israfel," and "The City in the Sea."

Publishing career

He returned to Baltimore, to his aunt, brother and cousin, in March 1831. Henry died from tuberculosis in August 1831. Poe turned his attention to prose, and placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication. He also began work on his only drama, Politian. The Saturday Visitor, a Baltimore paper, awarded a prize in October 1833 to his The Manuscript Found in a Bottle. The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorian of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and also introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in July 1835. Within a few weeks, he was discharged after being found drunk repeatedly. Returning to Baltimore, he secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. She was 13 at the time.

Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother, and remained at the paper until January 1837. During this period, its circulation increased from 700 to 3500. He published several poems, book reviews, criticism, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he entered into marriage in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.

Virginia Poe, in a painting created after her death.

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 at Graham's Magazine.

The evening of January 20, 1842, 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.

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Poe's cottage in the Bronx

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 on January 30, 1847.

Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. 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.

Death

Main article: Death of Edgar Allan Poe

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 friend who found him, Dr. E. Snodgrass. 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. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul." Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he may have attempted suicide in 1848.

Poe finally died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning. The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed and has aroused great controversy.

Griswold's "Memoir"

The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig" which was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it." "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a minor editor and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became executor of Poe's literary estate and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.

Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical "Memoir" of Poe, which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included forged letters as evidence. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well, but it became a popularly accepted one. This was due in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because it seemed to accord with the narrative voice Poe used in much of his fiction.

The Poe Toaster

Main article: Poe Toaster

Adding to the mystery surrounding Poe's death, an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster" has paid homage to Poe's grave every year since 1949. Though likely to have been several individuals in the more than 50 year history of this tradition, the tribute is always the same. Every January 19 in the early hours of the morning the man makes a toast of cognac to Poe's original grave marker and leaves three roses. Members of the Edgar Allan Poe Society in Baltimore have helped in protecting this tradition for decades.

Literary and artistic theory

In his essay "The Poetic Principle", Poe would argue that there is no such thing as a long poem, since the ultimate purpose of art is aesthetic, that is, its purpose is the effect it has on its audience, and this effect can only be maintained for a brief period of time (the time it takes to read a lyric poem, or watch a drama performed, or view a painting, etc.). He argued that an epic, if it has any value at all, must be actually a series of smaller pieces, each geared towards a single effect or sentiment, which "elevates the soul".

Poe associated the aesthetic aspect of art with pure ideality claiming that the mood or sentiment created by a work of art elevates the soul, and is thus a spiritual experience. In many of his short stories, artistically inclined characters (especially Roderick Usher from "The Fall of the House of Usher") are able to achieve this ideal aesthetic through fixation, and often exhibit obsessive personalities and reclusive tendencies. "The Oval Portrait" also examines fixation, but in this case the object of fixation is itself a work of art.

He championed art for art's sake (before the term itself was coined). He was consequentially an opponent of didacticism, arguing in his literary criticisms that the role of moral or ethical instruction lies outside the realm of poetry and art, which should only focus on the production of a beautiful work of art. He criticized James Russell Lowell in a review for being excessively didactic and moralistic in his writings, and argued often that a poem should be written "for a poem's sake". Since a poem's purpose is to convey a single aesthetic experience, Poe argues in his literary theory essay "The Philosophy of Composition", the ending should be written first. Poe's inspiration for this theory was Charles Dickens, who wrote to Poe in a letter dated March 6, 1842,

Apropos of the "construction" of "Caleb Williams," do you know that Godwin wrote it backwards, — the last volume first, — and that when he had produced the hunting down of Caleb, and the catastrophe, he waited for months, casting about for a means of accounting for what he had done?

Poe refers to the letter in his essay. Dickens's literary influence on Poe can also be seen in Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd." Its depictions of urban blight owe much to Dickens and in many places purposefully echo Dickens's language.

He was a proponent and supporter of magazine literature, and felt that short stories, or "tales" as they were called in the early nineteenth century, which were usually considered "vulgar" or "low art" along with the magazines that published them, were legitimate art forms on par with the novel or epic poem. His insistence on the artistic value of the short story was influential in the short story's rise to prominence in later generations.

Poe often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy in his fiction.

Poe also focused the theme of each of his short stories on one human characteristic. In "The Tell-Tale Heart", he focused on guilt, in "The Fall of the House of Usher", his focus was fear, etc.

Much of Poe's work was allegorical, but his position on allegory was a nuanced one: "In defence of allegory, (however, or for whatever object, employed,) there is scarcely one respectable word to be said. Its best appeals are made to the fancy — that is to say, to our sense of adaptation, not of matters proper, but of matters improper for the purpose, of the real with the unreal; having never more of intelligible connection than has something with nothing, never half so much of effective affinity as has the substance for the shadow."

Legacy and lore

Edgar Allan Poe's grave, Baltimore, MD.

Poe's works have had a broad influence on American and world literature (sometimes even despite those who tried to resist it), and even on the art world beyond literature. The scope of Poe's influence on art is evident when one sees the many and diverse artists who were directly and profoundly influenced by him.

American literature

Poe's literary reputation was greater abroad than in the United States, perhaps as a result of America's general revulsion towards the macabre. Rufus Griswold's defamatory reminiscences did little to commend Poe to U.S. literary society. However, American authors as diverse as Walt Whitman, H. P. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, and Herman Melville were influenced by Poe's works. Nathanael West used the concept and remarkable black humor of Poe's "The Man That Was Used Up" in his third novel, A Cool Million.

Flannery O'Connor, however, who grew up reading Poe's satirical works, claimed the influence of Poe on her works was "something I'd rather not think about". T. S. Eliot, who was often quite hostile to Poe, describing him as having "the intellect of a highly gifted person before puberty," professed that he was impressed, however, by Poe's abilities as a literary critic, calling him "the directest, the least pedantic, the least pedagogical of the critics writing in his time in either America or England."

Mark Twain was also a sharp critic of Poe. "To me his prose is unreadable—like Jane Austen's," he wrote in a January 18, 1909 letter to William Dean Howells.

Influence on French literature

In France, where he is commonly known as "Edgar Poe," Poe's works first arrived when two French papers published separate (and uncredited) translations of Poe's detective story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". A third newspaper, La Presse, accused the editor of the second paper, E. D. Forgues, of plagiarizing the first paper. Forgues explained that the story was original to neither paper, but was a translation of "les Contes d'E. Poe, littérateur américain." ("the stories of E. Poe, American author.") When La Presse did not acknowledge Forgues' explanation of the events, Forgues responded with a libel lawsuit, during which he repeatedly proclaimed, "Avez-vous lu Edgar Poe? Lisez Edgar Poe." ("Have you read Edgar Poe? Read Edgar Poe!") The notoriety of this trial spread Poe's name throughout Paris, gaining the interest of many poets and writers.

Among these was Charles Baudelaire, who translated almost all of Poe's stories and several of the poems into French. His excellent translations meant that Poe enjoyed a vogue among avant-garde writers in France while being ignored in his native land. Poe also exerted a powerful influence over Baudelaire's own poetry, as can be seen from Baudelaire's obsession with macabre imagery, morbid themes, musical verse and aesthetic pleasure. In a draft preface to his most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, Baudelaire lists Poe as one of the authors whom he plagiarized. Baudelaire also found in Poe an example of what he saw as the destructive elements of bourgeois society. Poe himself was critical of democracy and capitalism (in his story "Mellonta Tauta," Poe proclaims that "democracy is a very admirable form of government—for dogs" ), and the tragic poverty and misery of Poe's biography seemed, to Baudelaire, to be the ultimate example of how the bourgeoisie destroys genius and originality. Raymond Foye, editor of the book The Unknown Poe, put Baudelaire's and Poe's shared political sympathies this way:

Poe's anti-democratic views persuaded Baudelaire to abandon his socialism, and if these two men shared a single political preference it was monarchy. But each was a country unto himself, a majority of one, an aristocrat of the mind. There is arrogance here: the arrogance of loneliness.

Poe was much admired, also, by the school of Symbolism. Stéphane Mallarmé dedicated several poems to him and translated some of Poe's works into French, accompanied by illustrations by Manet (see below). The later authors Paul Valéry and Marcel Proust were great admirers of Poe, the latter saying "Poe sought to arrive at the beautiful through evocation and an elimination of moral motives in his art."

Other world literature

Britain

From France, Poe's works made their way to Britain, where writers like Algernon Swinburne caught the Poe-bug, and Swinburne's musical verse owes much to Poe's technique. Oscar Wilde called Poe "this marvellous lord of rhythmic expression" and drew on Poe's works for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his short stories.

The poet and critic W. H. Auden revitalized interest in Poe's works, especially his criticism. Auden said of Poe, "His portraits of abnormal or self-destructive states contributed much to Dostoyevsky, his ratiocinating hero is the ancestor of Sherlock Holmes and his many successors, his tales of the future lead to H. G. Wells, his adventure stories to Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson."

Other English writers, such as Aldous Huxley, however, were less fond of him. Huxley considered Poe to be the embodiment of vulgarity in literature.

Russia

Poe's poetry was translated into Russian by the symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont and enjoyed great popularity there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, influencing artists such as Nabokov, who makes several references to Poe's work in his most famous novel, Lolita.

Fyodor Dostoevsky called Poe "an enormously talented writer", favorably reviewing Poe's detective stories and briefly referencing "The Raven" in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. It has been suggested that Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov was inspired in part by Montresor from "The Cask of Amontillado", and that the same novel's Porfiry Petrovich owes a debt to C. Auguste Dupin.

Argentina

Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of Poe's works and translated his stories into Spanish. A few of the characters from Borges' stories are borrowed directly from Poe's stories, and in several of his stories Poe is mentioned by name. Another Argentinian author, Julio Cortázar, translated Poe's complete fiction and essays into Spanish.

Other countries

Poe was also an influence for the Swedish poet and author Viktor Rydberg, who translated a considerable amount of Poe's work into Swedish; a Japanese author who even took a pseudonym, Edogawa Rampo, from a rendering of Poe's name in that language; and German author Thomas Mann, in whose novel Buddenbrooks, a character reads Poe's short novels and professes to be influenced by his works. Friedrich Nietzsche refers to Poe in his masterpiece Beyond Good and Evil, and some have found evidence of Poe's influence on the philosopher.

Poe is one of the main topics in Zettel’s Traum, the 1,334-pages novel of Folio format by Arno Schmidt, type-written between 1962 and 1970. Trying to infer missing facts of Poe’s life by a subliminal reading of the work, Schmidt at length expounds an extremely extravagant – and humoristic – overall theory about Poe’s life and works.

Edogawa Rampo, a pioneer author of Japanese detective stories in the early 20th century, acknowledged Poe as one of his major influences.

Detective fiction

He is often credited as being an originator in the genre of detective fiction with his three stories about C. Auguste Dupin, the most famous of which is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." (Poe also wrote a satirical detective story called "Thou Art the Man") There is no doubt that he inspired mystery writers who came after him, particularly Arthur Conan Doyle in his series of stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was once quoted as saying, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?". Though Poe's Dupin was not the first detective in fiction, he became an archetype for all subsequent detectives, and Doyle acknowledged the primacy of C. Auguste Dupin in his Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, in which Watson compares Holmes to Dupin, much to Holmes's chagrin.

The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars."

Science fiction, gothic fiction and horror fiction

Poe also profoundly influenced the development of early science fiction author Jules Verne, who discussed Poe in his essay Poe et ses œuvres and also wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Le sphinx des glaces. H. G. Wells, in discussing the construction of his classics of science fiction, The War of the Worlds and The First Men in the Moon, noted that "Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago".

Renowned science fiction author Ray Bradbury has also professed a love for Poe. He often draws upon Poe in his stories and mentions Poe by name in several stories. His anti-censorship story "Usher II", set in a dystopian future in which the works of Poe (and some other authors) have been censored, features an eccentric who constructs a house based on Poe's tale "The Fall of the House of Usher".

Along with Mary Shelley, Poe is regarded as the foremost proponent of the Gothic strain in literary Romanticism. Death, decay and madness were an obsession for Poe. His curious and often nightmarish work greatly influenced the horror and fantasy genres, and the horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft claimed to have been profoundly influenced by Poe's works.

Playwrights and filmmakers

On the stage, the great dramatist George Bernard Shaw was greatly influenced by Poe's literary criticism, calling Poe "the greatest journalistic critic of his time" (Poe Encyclopaedia 315). Alfred Hitchcock declared Poe as a major inspiration, saying, "It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films."

Actor John Astin, who performed as Gomez in the Addams Family television series, is an ardent admirer of Poe, whom he resembles, and in recent years has starred in a one-man play based on Poe's life and works, Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight. The musical play Nevermore, by Matt Conner and Grace Barnes, was inspired by Poe's poems and essays. Actor Vincent Price played in many films based on Poe's stories like The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965), and The Oblong Box (1969) among many more. There has also been talk about Marilyn Manson making movies out of three of Poe's stories.

Another Poe impersonator is Baltimore-native David Keltz, notable as the star actor in the annual Poe birthday celebration at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground every January.

In 2005, a reading of the Broadway-bound musical "Poe" was announced, with a book by David Kogeas and music and lyrics by David Lenchus, featuring Deven May as Edgar Allan Poe. Plans for a full production have not been announced. In early 2007, NYC composer Phill Greenland and book writer/actor Ethan Angelica announced a new Poe stage musical titled "Edgar," which uses only Poe's prose and letters as text, and Poe's poems as lyrics.

Physics and cosmology

Eureka, an essay written in 1848, included a cosmological theory that anticipated black holes and the big bang theory by 80 years, as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox. Though described as a "prose poem" by Poe, who wished it to be considered as art, this work is a remarkable scientific and mystical essay unlike any of his other works. He wrote that he considered Eureka to be his career masterpiece.

Poe eschewed the scientific method in his Eureka. He argued that he wrote from pure intuition, not the Aristotelian a priori method of axioms and syllogisms, nor the empirical method of modern science set forth by Francis Bacon. For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science, but insisted that it was still true. Though some of his assertions have later proven to be false (such as his assertion that gravity must be the strongest force—it is actually the weakest), others have been shown to be surprisingly accurate and decades ahead of their time.

Cryptography

Poe had a keen interest in the field of cryptography, as exemplified in his short story The Gold Bug. In particular he placed a notice of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers, which he proceeded to solve. His success created a public stir for some months. He later wrote essays on methods of cryptography which proved useful in deciphering the German codes employed during World War I.

Poe's success in cryptography relied not so much on his knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram), as on his knowledge of the magazine and newspaper culture. His keen analytical abilities, which were so evident in his detective stories, allowed him to see that the general public was largely ignorant of the methods by which a simple substitution cryptogram can be solved, and he used this to his advantage. The sensation Poe created with his cryptography stunt played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.

Preserved homes

The Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia.

The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is in Baltimore, preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia (as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe). It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society.

Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria would later rent several homes in Philadelphia, but only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived in 1843-44, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. It is located on 7th and Spring Garden Streets, and is open Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Poe's final home is also preserved as the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, New York. The oldest home in Richmond, Virginia, which Poe never lived in, today serves as another Edgar Allan Poe Museum, focusing on his early years with the Allan family in particular.

Imitators

"For my soul from out that shadow Hath been lifted evermore— From that deep and dismal shadow, In the streets of Baltimore!

— Lizzie Doten, "Streets of Baltimore", from Poems from the Inner Life, imitating "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe."

Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned legions of imitators and plagiarists. One interesting trend among imitators of Poe, however, has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics to be "channelling" poems from Poe's spirit beyond the grave. One of the most notable of these was Lizzie Doten, who in 1863 published Poems from the Inner Life, in which she claimed to have "received" new compositions by Poe's spirit. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as "The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook. Poe researcher Thomas Ollive Mabbott notes that, at least compared to many other Poe imitators, Doten was not entirely without poetic talent, whether that talent was her own or "channelled" from Poe.

Poe in popular culture

Main article: Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture

Audio interpretations

• Vincent Price collaborated with actor Basil Rathbone on a collection of their readings of Poe's stories and poems.
• A double-CD organized by Hal Willner, "Closed On Account of Rabies" with poems and tales of Poe performed by artists as diverse as Christopher Walken, Marianne Faithfull, Iggy Pop and Jeff Buckley was issued in 1997.

Literature

• Author Ray Bradbury is a great admirer of Poe, and has either featured Poe as a character or alluded to Poe's stories in many of his works. Notable is Fahrenheit 451, a novel based in a world where books are banned and burned. A character in the novel memorizes Tales of Mystery and Imagination to make sure it is not lost forever.
• Robert R. McCammon wrote Ushers Passing, a sequel to Fall of the House of Usher, published in 1984
• The comic/graphic novel "Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl" features a dead little girl inspired by Poe's poem "Lenore."
• Linda Fairstein's 2005 novel Entombed features a modern day serial killer obsessed with Poe. The story takes place amongst Poe's old haunts in New York.
• Writer Stephen Marlowe adapted the strange details of Poe's death into his 1995 novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World.
• Clive Cussler's 2004 novel Lost City has numerous references to Poe's works. For example, the end is similar to "The Fall of the House of Usher," during the costume party, all the guest are dressed up as characters from his works, and death and torture methods in the novel are similar to "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Cask of Amontillado."
• Norwegian comic Nemi has got a special page with Nemi drawings to a poem by Poe.
• The 1995 novel Nevermore, by William Hjortsberg concerns a serial killer whose murders are based on Poe's stories; the detectives are the odd couple Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Music

Main article: Edgar Allan Poe and music

Television and film

Main article: Edgar Allan Poe in television and film

Video games

• In 1995 several of Poe's stories were combined to make an interactive novel stylised as a video game called The Dark Eye. Beat legend William S. Burroughs read the poem "Annabel Lee" and the story "The Masque of the Red Death" for the game soundtrack.
• In the Nintendo video game series The Legend Of Zelda, the ghost-like beings that are featured throughout the games are called Poes.
• In 2002, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (a video game for the Nintendo Gamecube) features a quote from "The Raven" upon startup, and is often said to have many elements inspired by his works (Although it draws more inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

Visual arts

• In the world of visual arts, Gustave Doré and Édouard Manet composed several illustrations for Poe's works.
• Edgar Allan Poe is a semi-frequent character in the webcomic Thinkin' Lincoln.
• The Phantom comic strip (2000), written by Tony De Paul and drawn by César Spadari

Other

• The bar in which Poe was last seen drinking before his death still stands in Fells Point in Baltimore, MD. Though the name has changed and it is now known as The Horse You Came In On, local lore insists that a ghost they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.
• The United States Navy commissioned a vessel named after Poe, the USS E.A. Poe (IX-103).
• Poe's image adorns the bottle cap of Raven Beer.
• Edgar Allan Poe is credited with the inspiration for pro wrestler Scott Levy's stage name, Raven.
• In 1996, the NFL franchise known as the Cleveland Browns relocated to Baltimore and assumed a new identity, including a new nickname, the Ravens, which was chosen following a telephone poll by the Baltimore Sun. The poll included three choices, the others being Americans and Marauders, but Ravens won by a wide margin, garnering nearly two-thirds of the 33,288 votes. The Ravens have 3 mascots named Edgar, Allan and Poe. This choice is considered by many to be a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.

References

General references

• Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales (Patrick F. Quinn, ed.) (Library of America, 1984) ISBN 978-0-94045018-9
• Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews (G.R. Thompson, ed.) (Library of America, 1984) ISBN 978-0-94045019-6
• Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Walter J. Black Inc, New York, (1927).
• Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography, Arthur Hobson Quinn, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc, (1941). ISBN 0-8018-5730-9
• Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, three volumes (I and II Tales and Sketches, III Poems), edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, The Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, (1978).
• The Unknown Poe, edited by Raymond Foye. City Lights, San Francisco, CA. Prefaces, Copyright by Raymond Foye, (1980).
• Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman. Harper Perennial, New York, NY, (1991).
• The Poe Encyclopedia by Frederick S. Frank and Anthony Magistrale. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut and London, England, (1997). ISBN 0-313-27768-0
• The Classics of Style, by Edgar Allan Poe, et al., The American Academic Press, (2006). ISBN 0-9787282-0-3

External links

About Poe

• Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site
• Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia
• Edgar Allan Poe's Signature
• Poe Cottage Bronx
• Poe's True Prediction about Cannibalism
• Poe Society in Baltimore
• Maryland Public Television's Knowing Poe: The Literature, Life, and Times of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and Beyond
• In a Sequestered Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walked - H. P. Lovecraft poem referencing Poe's visits to Whitman
• 1992 audio interview with Ken Silverman, author of Edgar A Poe : Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance by Don Swaim

Works

• Poems by Edgar Allan Poe at PoetryFoundation.org
• Works by Edgar Allan Poe at Project Gutenberg
• Selected Works of Poe at Inspired Poetry
• PoeStories.com - A well organized site with summaries, quotes, and full text of Poe's short stories, a Poe timeline, and image gallery. Stories have linked vocabulary words and definitions for educational reading.
• The Edgar Allan Poe Virtual Library
• Audio recordings at Literal Systems
• The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Poe's complete works and a wealth of biographical and critical material, including a review of the known facts about Poe's death
• Public domain recording of "The Raven"
• Edgar A.Poe cryptographic challenge solved
• Poe Short Story Audiobooks - free download
• WorldCat Identities page for 'Poe, Edgar Allan 1809-1849'