(1809 – 1849)

This famous American writer is best known for his poems, short fiction and literary criticism. He invented the detective story and his psychological thrillers influenced writers world-wide. E. A. Poe was very interested in the darker side of human nature. He transformed the short story from anecdote to art. He virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He also produced important theoretical statements on poetry and the short story. He has had a world-wide influence on literature.

Poe's parents were touring actors; both died before he was 3 years old, and he and his brother and sister were taken into the home of John Allan, a prosperous merchant in Richmond, Virginia. He was baptized Edgar Allan Poe. His childhood was uneventful, although he studied for five years in England. In 1826 he entered the University of Virginia but stayed for only a year. Although a good student, he ran up large gambling debts that Allan refused to pay. Allan prevented his return to the university and broke off Poe's engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster, his Richmond sweetheart. Lacking any means of support, Poe enlisted in the army under the name Edgar Allan Perry. He had already written his first book Tamerlane and Other Poems, verses written in the manner of Byron (he wrote them anonymously under the signature A. Bostonian). His feud with Allan continued.

Temporarily reconciled, Allan secured Poe's release from the army and his appointment to West Point, but refused to provide support. After 6 months, Poe apparently contrived to be dismissed from West Point for disobedience of orders. His fellow cadets, however, contributed the funds for the publication of Poems by Edgar A. Poe …Second Edition, actually a third edition – after Tamerlane and Al Aarauf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. It included the famous To Helen and Israfel, poems that show the restraint and the calculated musical effects of language that were to characterize his poetry.

Poe then lived in Baltimore with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, and turned to fiction as a way to support himself. In 1832 the Philadelphia Saturday Courier published five of his stories – all comic or satiric – and in 1833, MS. Found in a Bottle won a $50 prize by the Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Poe, his aunt, and Virginia moved to Richmond in 1835, and he became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger and married Virginia, who was not yet 14 years old. Poe published fiction, notably his most horrifying tale, Berenice in the Messenger, but most of his contributions were serious, analytical, and critical reviews that earned him respect as a critic. He praised the young Dickens and a few other contemporaries but devoted most of his attention to devastating reviews of popular contemporary authors. His contributions increased the magazine's circulation, but they offended its owner, who also took exception to Poe's drinking. The January 1837 issue of the Messenger announced Poe's withdrawal as editor but also included the first installment of his long prose tale, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, five of his reviews, and two of his poems. This was to be the paradoxical pattern for Poe's career: success as an artist and editor but failure to satisfy his employers and to secure a livelihood.

First in New York City (1837), then in Philadelphia (1838 – 44), and again in New York (1844 – 49), Poe sought to establish himself as a force in literary journalism, but with only moderate success. He did succeed, however, in formulating influential literary theories and in demonstrating mastery of the forms he favoured – highly musical poems and short prose narratives. Both forms, he argued, should aim at "a certain unique or single effect". His theory of short fiction is best exemplified in Ligeia, the tale Poe considered his finest, and the Fall Of The House Of Usher, which was to become one of his most famous stories. The Murders in the Rue Morgue is sometimes considered the first detective story. Exemplary among his musical, mellifluous verses are The Raven and The Bells.

Virginia's death in January 1847 was a heavy blow, but Poe continued to write and lecture. In the summer of 1849 he revisited Richmond, lectured, and was accepted anew by the fiancée he had lost in 1826. After his return north he was found unconscious on a Baltimore, Maryland street, and died in October.

Works: Tamerlane and Al Aarauf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems; Poems by Edgar A. Poe, Second Edition; MS. Found in a Bottle; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym; Ligeia; The Fall Of The House Of Usher; The Pit and the Pendulum; The Murders in the Rue Morgue; The Mystery of Mary Roget; The Gold Bug; The Black Cat; The Tell-Tale Heart; The Raven; The Purloined Letter; Ulalume; The Bells.

The Fall of the House of Usher - it is a tale with autobiographical elements, tonal and plot unity, and a Gothicism. The sensible narrator visits his demented friend, Roderick Usher, in Usher's cracked house. Usher places his sister, Madeline, in a coffin while she is still barely alive. One stormy night, she noisily emerges to fall on him; both then die as the house collapses. The work concerns sentient materiality, spiritual listlessness, possible incest and vampirism, premature burial, and revenge.