BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Edgar Allan Poe, a Short Biography
Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. His parents were actors. Abandoned by his father, Edgar’s mother died when Poe was only 2-years-old. Edgar was taken in but never formerly adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, a wealthy Richmond couple. Poe and John Allan had a turbulent relationship, and when Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, he only gave Edgar about a third of what he needed and soon young Edgar had gambled that away and in despair had turned to drink.
With no more support from his benefactor, Poe took up the alias Edgar A. Perry and joined the army and was soon posted to Ft. Moultrie on Sullivans Island. Reportedly a good soldier and briefly later reconciled to John Allan, Poe managed an appointment to West Point, but soon after the relationship with Allan soured once again most believe Edgar deliberately got himself expelled to spite Allan. Later when Allan died, having never formerly adopted Poe, he left his stepson nothing from his estate.
In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe moved to New York City. He submitted stories to a number of magazines, and they were all rejected. With no friends and no job, he was in financial trouble, but he struggled on. In 1835, Poe finally got a job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, “The Manuscript Found in a Bottle”. In 1836, Poe married his cousin, Virginia. He was 27 and she was 13. In years following, he worked as an editor writing for a number of magazines. Though his poetry and stories were read widely and he was well known, he earned very little from his writing and was almost always short of funds. Poe only received $9 for The Raven.
But Poe certainly had a unique voice. Some say he invented the detective story with The Murders in the Rue Morgue. He was entranced with codes and ciphers and often challenged readers to send in cryptograms, which he always solved. He would use a cryptogram in his famous story The Gold Bug, set on Sullivans Island.
After his death, Poe’s writings were dismissed in America, but became a sensation in Europe, particularly in France where the French poet, Baudelaire translated Poe’s works into French. Abroad, Poe was acclaimed a genius, and in death, his literary fortunes soared. Eventually critics in his homeland began to recognize his unique position in the pantheon of American letters, as well.
Today Edgar Allen Poe is considered one of America’s greatest writers.
Edgar Allan Poe and His Mysterious Death
Edgar Allan Poe did disappear for five days prior to his death. His whereabouts and activities are completely unknown. It is believed he boarded a ship in Richmond bound for New York but turned up in Baltimore where he was found delirious, wandering the streets. Recognized by an acquaintance, he was taken to a nearby tavern and was moved to a nearby hospital, where he died.
Poe remained incoherent, delirious and delusional, calling out for someone named “Reynolds.” Three days later, at the age of 40, after fading in and out of consciousness, but without regaining coherence, Poe died. His enemies and literary rivals were quick to blame Poe’s drinking on his demise. There is no doubt, Poe had a problem with alcohol. He did make an effort to stop drinking, even joining the Richmond Sons of Temperance, but soon he was drinking again. Many believe this led to Poe’s madness, although he himself said “the drink didn’t make him mad, the madness made him drink.” Some scholars have suggested that Poe showed symptoms of hypo-glycemia, which would explain his low tolerance for alcohol and his delusional behavior at times. Others have speculated his erratic behavior on a brain tumor or perhaps even rabies. Perhaps it was simply depression, for after the death of his wife Virginia to tuberculosis; most agree, Poe was despondent and never the same again.
And who was the mysterious “Reynolds” to whom Poe called out for on his deathbed? Many believe he was Jeremiah Reynolds, an Antarctic explorer of the 19th century. Reynolds, like many during this last age of exploration, believed that somewhere in the Antarctic region there was an entrance to the center of the earth, where if one could penetrate the Antarctic ice one would find a tropical paradise. Poe, knew of Reynolds and used his theories and expeditions as the basis for The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Manuscript Found in the Bottle, both tales of ghostly, ghastly and ultimately ill-fated voyages to the Antarctic.
While the inspiration for Poe’s fascination with the Antarctic can be traced to Jeremiah Reynolds, there is little solid information as to the identity of Annabel Lee. Poe’s poem, Annabel Lee, was one of the last, perhaps the last poem Poe penned before his death. No one knows the identity of his beloved Annabel Lee. Most likely she was a creature of Poe’s vivid imagination. But Charleston author and publisher, the late Mrs. Elizabeth Verner Hamilton, speculated that perhaps Annabel Lee was a young Charleston belle who caught Poe’s eye and became his first love. Poe was after all, stationed at Sullivans Island when he was only 17, young, impressionable and adventurous. He had run away from home, joined the army under the alias Edgar A. Perry and found himself stationed at Ft. Moultrie on Sullivans Island. (Poe would later set two stories on Sullivans Island, The Gold Bug and The Great Balloon Hoax.) If indeed, Annabel Lee was a Charleston girl, this would of course make Charleston the fabled “kingdom by the sea.” This is all mere speculation, however, but wonderful speculation—so wonderful that I made Annabel Lee a Charleston girl , who Young Edgar meets on a Sullivans Island beach in Nevermore.
One final note, beginning in the 1940’s and for more than 60 years following Poe’s birthday, a mysterious figure, dressed in white, would appear at his grave at midnight. This mysterious visitor would leave a single white rose and a bottle of cognac on Poe’s grave. This tradition continued until 2010 when the mysterious visitor, never having been identified, failed to appear. Another mystery for a mysterious man.