Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

[Brit Boi Gee]

One the greatest and unhappiest of American poets, a master of the horror tale, and the patron saint of the detective story. Edgar Allan Poe first gained critical acclaim in France and England. His reputation in America was relatively slight until the French-influenced writers like Ambroce Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, and representatives of the Lovecraft school created interest in his work.

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins?" (from The Premature Burial, 1844)
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were itinerant actors. His father David Poe Jr. died probably in 1810. Elizabeth Hopkins Poe died in 1811, leaving three children. Edgar was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan. The remaining children were cared for by others. Poe's brother William died young and sister Rosalie become later insane. At the age of five Poe could recite passages of English poetry. Later one of his teachers in Richmond said: "While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet."

Poe was brought up partly in England (1815-20), where he attended Manor School at Stoke Newington. Later it become the setting for his story 'William Wilson'. Never legally adopted, Poe took Allan's name for his middle name. Poe attended the University of Virginia (1826-27), but was expelled for not paying his gambling debts. This led to quarrel with Allan, who refused to pay the debts. Allan later disowned him. In 1826 Poe became engaged to Elmira Royster, but her parents broke off the engagement. During his stay at the university, Poe composed some tales, but little is known of his apprentice works. In 1827 Poe joined the U.S. Army as a common soldier under assumed name, Edgar A. Perry. He was sent to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, which provided settings for 'The Gold Bug' (1843) and 'The Balloon Hoax' (1844). Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), which Poe published at his own expense, sold poorly. It has become one of the rarest volumes in American literary history. In 1830 Poe entered West Point. He was dishonorably discharged next year, for intentional neglect of his duties - apparently as a result of his own determination to be released.

In 1833 Poe lived in Baltimore with his father's sister Mrs. Maria Clemm. After winning a prize of $50 for the short story 'MS Found in a Bottle,' he started career as a staff member of various magazines, among others the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond (1835-37), Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia (1839-40), and Graham's Magazine (1842-43). During these years he wrote some of his best-known stories. Southern Literary Messenger he had to leave partly due to his alcoholism.

In 1836 Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. She bust a blood vessel in 1842, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years later. After the death of his wife, Poe began to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs. He had several romances, including an affair with the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who said: "His proud reserve, his profound melancholy, his unworldliness - may we not say his unearthliness of nature - made his character one very difficult of comprehension to the casual observer." In 1849 Poe become again engaged to Elmira Royster, who was at that time Mrs. Shelton. To Virginia he addressed the famous poem 'Annabel Lee' (1849) - its subject, Poe's favorite, is the death of a beautiful woman.

...
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-time, I lie down by the side
Of my darling - my darling - my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
(from 'Annabel Lee', 1849)

Poe's first collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, appeared in 1840. It contained one of his most famous work, 'The Fall of the House of Usher.' In the story the narrator visits the crumbling mansion of his friend, Roderick Usher, and tries to dispel Roderick's gloom. Although his twin sister, Madeline, has been placed in the family vault dead, Roderick is convinced she lives. Madeline arises in trance, and carries her brother to death. The house itself splits asunder and sinks into the tarn. The tale has inspired several film adaptations. Roger Corman's version from 1960, starring Mark Damon, Harry Ellerbe, Myrna Fahey, and Vincent Price, was the first of the director's Poe movies. The Raven (1963) collected old stars of the horror genre, Vincent Price, Peter, Lorre, and Boris Karloff. According to the director, Price and Lorre "drove Boris a little crazy" - the actor was not used to improvised dialogue. Corman filmed the picture in fifteen days, using revamped portions of his previous Poe sets.

[Brit Boi Gee]

In Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), Poe's longest tale, the secret theme is the terror of whiteness. Poe invented tribes that live near the Antarctic Circle. The strange bestial humans are black, even down to their teeth. They have been exposed to the terrible visitations of men and white storms. These are mixed together, and they slaughter the crew of Pym's vessel. The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges has assumed that Poe chose the color intuitively, or for the same reasons as in Melville explained in the chapter 'The Whiteness of the Whale' in his Moby-Dick. Later the 'lost world' idea was developed by Edgar Rice Burroughs in The Land That Time Forgot (1924) and other works.

During the early 1840s, Poe's best-selling work was curiously The Conchologist's First Book (1839). It was based on Thomas Wyatt's work, which sold poorly because of its high prize. Wyatt was Poe's friend and asked him to abridge the book and put his own name on its title page - the publisher had strongly opposed any idea of producing a cheaper edition. The Conchologist's First Book was a success. Its first edition was sold out in two months and other editions followed.

The dark poem of lost love, 'The Raven,' brought Poe national fame, when it appeared in 1845. "With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not - they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind." (from The Raven and Other Poems, preface, 1845) In a lecture in Boston the author said that the two most effective letters in the English language were o and r - this inspired the expression "nevermore" in 'The Raven', and because a parrot is unworthy of the dignity of poetry, a raven could well repeat the word at the end of each stanza. Lenore rhymed with "nevermore." The poems has inspired a number of artists. Perhaps the most renowed are Gustave Doré's (1832-1883) melancholic illustrations.

Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year he disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on his way to visit his new fiancée in Richmond. He turned up in delirious condition in Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.

Poe's work and his theory of "pure poetry" was early recognized especially in France, where he inspired Jules Verne, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), Paul Valéry (1871-1945) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898). "In Edgar Poe," wrote Baudelaire, "there is no tiresome snivelling; but everywhere and at all times an indefatigable enthusiasm in seeking the ideal." In America Emerson called him "the jingle man." Poe's influence is seen in many other modern writers, as in Junichiro Tanizaki's early stories and Kobo Abe's novels, or more clearly in the development of the19th century detective novel. J.L. Borges, R.L. Stevenson, and a vast general readership, have been impressed by the stories which feature Poe's detective Dupin ('The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 1841; 'The Purloined Letter,' 1845) and the morbid metaphysical speculation of 'The Facts in the Case of M. Waldermar' (1845). Thomas M. Disch has argued in his The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (1998) that it was actually Poe who was the originator of the modern science fiction. One of his tales, 'Mellonta Taunta' (1840) describes a future society, an anti-Utopia, in which Poe satirizes his own times. Another tales in this vein are 'The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Sceherazade' and 'A Descent into the Maelstrom'. However, Poe was not concerned with any specific scientific concept but mostly explored different realities, one of the central concerns of science fiction ever since.

In his supernatural fiction Poe usually dealt with paranoia rooted in personal psychology, physical or mental enfeeblement, obsessions, the damnation of death, feverish fantasies, the cosmos as source of horror and inspiration, without bothering himself with such supernatural beings as ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and so on. Some of his short stories are humorous, among them 'The Devil in the Belfry,' 'The Duc de l'Omelette,' 'Bon-Bon' and 'Never Bet the Devil Your Head,' all of which employ the Devil as an ironic figure of fun. - Poe was also one of the most prolific literary journalists in American history, one whose extensive body of reviews and criticism has yet to be collected fully. James Russell Lowell (1819-91) once wrote about Poe: "Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge."

[Brit Boi Gee]

Selected works:

Tamelane and Other Poems, By a Bostonian, 1827
Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 1838
Poems, 1831
Metzengerstein, 1832
MS Found in a Bottle, 1833
Morella, 1835
Shadow, 1835
Berenice, 1835
Loss of Breath, 1835
Bon-Bon, 1835
King Pest, 1835
Ligeia, 1838 - film: 1964, dir. by Roger Corman
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838 - unfinished
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1839
The Conchologist's First Book, 1839 (ed.)
The Fall of the House of Usher, 1839 - films: 1928, dir. by Jean Epstein and Luis Bunuel; 1949, dir. by Ivan Barnett; 1960, dir. by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, Mark Damon, Harry Ellerbe, screenplay by Richard Matheson. "Because there are only four people in the film (including servant Harry Ellerbe), Richard Matheson was stuck with the problem of writing a horror movie in which nothing could happen to anyone until the end. So he inserted numerous filler scenes that are there strictly for atmosphere (a dram sequence, trip into the crypt, a look at the family gallery). And to take up more time, his characters use about 10 lines when one or two would suffice." (Danny Perry in Guide for the Film Fanatic, 1986); film 1988, dir. by Alan Birkinshaw, starring Oliver Red, Donald Pleasance, Romy Windsor, Rufus Swart. Filmed in South Africa.
William Wilson, 1839
Silence, 1839
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, 1839
The Devil in the Belfrey, 1839
The Conchologist's First Book, 1839 (with others)
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840
The Man of the Crowd, 1840
A Descent into Maelström, 1841
The Island of the Fay, 1841
The Colloquy of Monos and Una, 1841
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1841 - films: 1932, dir. by Robert Florey, starrirng Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox; 1954; 1971, dir. by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards Jnr, Herbert Lom, Lilli Palmer (filmed in Spain); 1986 (TV movie), dir. by Jeannot Szwarc, starring George C. Scott, Rebecca De Mornay, Ian McShane, Neil Dickson, Val Kilmer
The Masque of the Red Death, 1842 - films: 1964, dir. by Roger Corman, starring Jane Asher, Hazel Court, Nogel Green, Patrick Magee, Vincent Price (with a subplot based on 'Hop Frog') ; Concorde in 1989, dir. by larry Brand, starring Clare Hoak, Patrick Macnee, Paul Michael , Jeff Osterhage
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, 1842-43
Eleonara, 1842
The Oval Portrait, 1842
The Black Cat, 1843
The Gold Bug, 1843
The Pit and the Pendulum, 1843 - films: 1961, dir. by Roger Corman, starring Luana Anders, Anthony Carbone, John Kerr, Vincent Price, Barbara Steele; Full Moon in 1990, dir. by Stuart Gordon, starring Jonathan Fuller, Lance henriksen, Oliver Reed, Rona de Ricci
The Prose Poems of Edgar A. Poe, 1843
The Tell-Tale Heart, 1843
The Oblong Box, 1844
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, 1844
The Balloon Hoax, 1844
The Elk, 1844
The Assignation (aka The Visionary), 1844
Thou Art the Man, 1844
The Spectacles, 1844
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, 1845
The Premature Burial, 1845 - film 1962, dir. by Roger Corman, starring Ray Milland, Heather Angel, Hazel Court, screenplay by Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell
The Purloined Letter, 1845
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, 1845
The Imp of the Perverse, 1845
The Raven and Other Poems, 1845 - films: The Raven in 1963, dir. by Roger Corman, starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court, Jack Nicholson . - Note: in the film The Raven (1935), dir. by Louis Friedlander, Bela Lugosi identifies himself with Edgar Allan Poe, and has a room full of the torture devices Poe described in his stories. Boris Karloff is his assistant
Tales, 1845
The Cask of Amontillado, 1846
The Domain of Arnheim, 1847
Eureka: A Prose Poem, 1848
Mellonta Tauta, 1849
Hop-Frog, 1849
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 1902
The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, 1938
The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, 1948
The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, 1976

[Mind~$oul]

I have The Poe Reader. Dude was crazy

[MÅDpoet]

check out "alone" by him. its my fav. poem till this day

[Dark_Angel]

I have read his Poetic Principle...its damn long but very good on poetry theory, not for techniques but I had to study it..ahah fun!

[Justin85]

edgar alan poe is dope.. i have a book of his complete set of poems. it is great.

[MisterEThoughts]

i love allan poe he soo amazing one of my favorite poets ever

[tooshort21]

edgar alan poe was a very depressed man, and his vent was poetry, in that he was untouchable. One of my favorite poets of all time. thanks for putting that down brit boi peace

[Ishmael]

My favorite short story of all time was written by Poe. Cask of Amon Tillado. I know it was supposed to be eerie and stuff, but I found it to be hillarious, especially when the main character pulls out the trowel. It made me lol.

[predicate]

I haven't read much of Poe. The few poems of his I have read were unimpressive. That along with Harold Bloom's claim that Poe is one of the worst poets ever leaves me uninterested in reading anything more of his.

[Clarksvegas_Dan]

Originally Posted by predicate

I haven't read much of Poe. The few poems of his I have read were unimpressive. That along with Harold Bloom's claim that Poe is one of the worst poets ever leaves me uninterested in reading anything more of his.

Was Harold Bloom a member of the Litterati?

[predicate]

Harold Bloom is arguably the most well-read human alive. Ever see Good Will Hunting? Remember how he read one page per second? Bloom has been doing that for the majority of his life (and he's over 70 now, I think).

[Brit Boi Gee]

does a man who has a higher book count automatically sway your vote? sounds a little narrow minded to me..

[predicate]

He didn't sway my vote, but reinforced my first impressions. Should I continue to read more of his work if my own and another's opinion tell me not to?

Didn't I say that in my first post?

[Ophqui]

Only read stories by him, not poems. I do like the stories though, 'Premature burial' Is scary sh!t. 'tell-tale heart' is prolly his most well known, an i really enjoyed reading it. Is there an online resource of his poetry somwhere? im interested.

[Ghostly Notes]

Very talented poet. My favorite of all time, I was definatley inspired by him.
May he rest in peace.

[Nihilist.]

he was aighht