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EDGAR ALLAN POE (18og-1849)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 876 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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EDGAR ALLAN POE (18og-1849)  ,
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American poet, writer of fiction and critic, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the loth of
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January 1809 . The
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family was of
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English origin, but was settled in Ireland, whence the poet's
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great-grandfather emigrated to
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Maryland . His grandfather, David Poe, served with credit as a soldier in the War of Independence, was known to Washington, on the
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Southern
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Literary Messenger of Richmond, on the New and was the friend of
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Lafayette . His son David Poe was bred as a lawyer, but deeply offended his family by marrying an actress of English birth, Mrs Elizabeth Hopkins,nee Arnold,and by himself going on the stage . In 1811 he and his wife died, leaving three children—William, Edgar, and a daughter Rosalie—wholly destitute . William died young, and Rosalie became mad . Edgar was adopted by John Allan, a
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tobacco merchant of Scottish ex-traction, seemingly at the request of his wife, who was childless . The boy was indulged in every way, and encouraged to believe that he would inherit Mr Allan's fortune . Mr Allan, having come to England in 1815, placed Edgar in a school at Stoke Newington, kept by a Dr Bransby . In 182o Mr Allan returned to Richmond, Virginia, and Edgar was first placed at school in the
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town and then sent to the university of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1826 . Here the effects of a very unwise training on a temperament of inherited neurotic tendency were soon seen . He was fond of athletics, and was a strong and ardent swimmer; but he
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developed a passion for gambling and drink .

His disorders made it necessary to remove him, and he was taken away by Mr Allan, who refused to pay his debts of

honour . He enlisted on the 26th of May 1827 at Boston, and served for two years in the
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United States army . As a soldier his conduct must have been exemplary, for he was promoted sergeant-major on the 1st of January 1829 . It is to be noted that throughout his
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life, when under orders, Poe could be a diligent and capable subordinate . In May 1829 Mr Allan secured his discharge from the army, and in 183o obtained a nomination for him to the West Point military academy . As a student he showed considerable faculty for mathematics, but his aloofness prevented him from being popular with his comrades, and he neglected his duty . When court-martialled he made no answer to the charges, and was expelled on the 6th of March 1831 . Mr Allan's generosity was now exhausted . The
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death of his first wife in 1829 had doubtless removed an influence favourable to Poe . A second
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marriage brought him children, and at his death in 1834 he
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left his adopted son nothing . A last meeting between the two, shortly before Mr Allan's death, led only to a scene of painful violence . In 1827 Poe had published his first
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volume of
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poetry, Tamer-lane and other Poems, at Boston .

He did not publish under his name, but as " A Bostonian." In 1831 he published a volume of Poems under his name at New

York . His life immediately after he left West Point is very obscure, but in 1833 he was living at Baltimore with his paternal aunt, Mrs Clemm, who was throughout life his
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protector, and, in so far as extreme poverty permitted, his support . In x833 he won a prize of $loo offered for the best story by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor . He would have won the prize for the best poem if the judges had not thought it wrong to give both rewards to one competitor . The story, MS. found in a Bottle, is one of the most mediocre of his tales, but his success gave him an introduction to editors and publishers, who were attracted by his striking
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personal appearance and his
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fine manners, and were also touched by his manifest poverty . From 1833 till his death he was employed on different magazines at Richmond, New York and
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Philadelphia . His famous poem " The Raven " was published first in 1845, and soon became extraordinarily popular; but Poe only got £2 for it . The facts of his life have been the subject of very
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ill-judged controversy . The acrimonious tone of the biography by Rufus Griswold, prefixed to the first collected edition of his
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works in 185o, gave natural offence, and attempts have been made to show that the biographer was wrong as to the facts . But it is no real kindness to Poe's memory to deny the sad truth that he was subject to chronic alcoholism . He was not a boon companion, and never became callous to his
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vice . When it seized him he drank raw
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spirits, and was disordered by a very little .

But when he was

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free from the maddening influence of
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alcohol he was gentle, well-bred, and a hard worker on the staff of a
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magazine, willing and able to write reviews, answer correspondents,
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pro-pound riddles or invent and solve cryptograms . His value as a contributor and sub-editor secured him successive engagements York Quarterly Review, and on Graham's Magazine at Philadelphia . It enabled him in 1843 to have a magazine of his own, the Stylus . His
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mania sooner or later broke off all his engagements and ruined his own venture . In 1835 he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a beautiful girl of fourteen years of age . A false statement as to her age was made at the time of the marriage, She died after a long decline in 1847 . Poe made two attempts to marry
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women of fortune—Mrs Whitman and Mrs Shelton . The first of these engagements was broken off . The second was terminated by his death in hospital at Baltimore, Md., on the 7th of
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October 1849 . His life and death had many precedents, and will always recur among Bohemian men of letters and artists . What was individual in Poe, and what alone renders him memorable, was his narrow but profound and
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original genius (see AMERICAN LITERATURE) . In the midst of much hack-
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work and not a few failures in his own field he produced a small
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body of verse, and a handful of short stories of rare and
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peculiar excellence .

The poems

express a melancholy sensuous emotion in a penetrating melody all his own . The stories give form to horror and fear with an exquisite exactness of touch, or construct and unravel mysteries with extreme dexterity . He was a conscientious literary artist who revised and perfected his work with care . His criticism, though often
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commonplace and sometimes ill-natured, as when he attacked Longfellow for
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plagiarism, was trenchant and sagacious at his best .

End of Article: EDGAR ALLAN POE (18og-1849)
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