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The Dark Workings of the Mind
The Dionoil Legends
The Deafening Hush
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) was born Edgar Poe to actor parents. His father deserted before his birth, and his mother came down with Consumption (a form of TB) when he was two. After which time, he was taken in by John Allen, a tobacco exporter from Richmond. John and his
wife were unable to have children, so John's wife loved Poe as a son. John, however, resented him to his dying day. He refused to adopt him, saying 'no son of an actor shall carry my name'. He compromised
eventually, and allowed Edgar to have Allen as his middle name.
Poe went to an odd school as a child, he spent most of his time digging graves. He did do well enough, however, to get into the University of
Virginia. He piled up gambling debts quickly, and was forced to leave before the year was over. When he returned, he found that his adoptive mother had died of Consumption, and John Allen had no intention of
supporting him any more. After a great battle with Allen, he left the house of his childhood for the last time. John Allen would die a few years later, leaving no place in his will for Poe.
Poe spent the next few years in the Army before getting admitted to West Point. He was discharged from there only a few months later, for disobedience and neglect of duty. His life then went into a tail spin. We worked constantly on writing, but he lost jobs on several magazines.
The reason for this is unknown. A biographer who wrote about him after his death said that it was due to compulsive drinking. That biographer's only purpose was to destroy Poe's reputation, which he did very well.
Very few people know the truth, that Poe was indeed allergic to alcohol.
During much of this time, he lived with his Aunt, and he fell in love
with his 13-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Poe asked his Aunt for his
cousin's hand in marriage. His Aunt permitted this union, but only if he
would wait until Virgina was 14.
After he was wed, his life entered a more peaceful time. He was madly in
love, and was begining to be accepted widly as a poet a short story
writer. It was at this time that he was visited by one of the greatest
authors of the day, Charles Dickens. Poe had started work on a poem, but
could tell that it wasn't going anywhere, until he had a dinner with
Dickens. There Dickens got to talking about an unusual pet he had that
had died. A pet raven, that had gotten into a bucket of oil while he was
away. This inspired Poe to add a raven to the poem he was working on.
'The Raven' is now one of the greatest and most well known poems ever
written. At the time, however, it was all he could do to prove he wrote
it. By a great folly, he had it first published in a newspaper. Since
newspapers are not under copyright, several other people claimed it as
thier own. Finally, Poe gained control of the work, and he toured the
nation reading it. He would stand before a candle in a great ampitheatre
so his shadow would be cast on the audience. This created a great
atmosphere, and his fame quickly spread.
One night, while working at his desk, he heard his wife scream. He
rushed into the room to find her holding a white hankerchief with a
small spot of red in the middle. If you were to cough into a white
hankerchief and found a spot of blood in the middle, it meant you had
Consumption, and that you were going to die. Even though the poem based
on his wife, 'Annabel Lee', brought him continued recognition, he
continued to have financial difficulties.He was engaged in 1849, and the
same year he got a job as editor of a New York magazine. On a crisp
November morning, he set out to travel to New York. He left his wife
to-be behind as he looked for a residence. As he waited at the Baltimore
train station, a crowd arrived and asked him to have a drink with him.
He politley refused, citing that he did not drink. The crowd persisted,
and Poe agreed to join them for an orange juice. They game him spiked
orange juice, and got him thouroughly drunk before taking him to the
voting polls . They told him who to vote for. Then, with their mission
completed, left him for dead. He collapsed by a street and slowly died
of alchohol poisoning. He was not found until that night, when a friend
of his happened by. Ironicly enough, the man whom he died to vote for
did not with the election.
For all the pain of his life, the greatest injustices to him would come
after death, from those he owed money to. One man cursed his name in a
biography that was string of exagerations and lies. That was mild
compared to another man who got a judge to allow him to exume the bones
of his wife. The man then toured carnivals with the corpse. "For 10
cents, you can touch the bones of the woman who inspired the poem
'Annabel Lee'", the sign outside the tent read. Finally, another judge
overturned the previous decision, and Virginia Poe was returned to her
grave. By that time, the man had earned nearly double what Poe owed him.
Edgar Allen Poe, the master of dark, the father of mystery, is more
popular today than he ever was in life. Most of the misconceptions of
his life are still perpetuated by even the most distinguished publishing
companies. For all that, his work is loved at face value, stretching
across generations and centuries like no writer since Shakespeare. Our
children and grand-children will read and love his work long after we
are gone. We will always admire his talent, and will always live in the
shadow of his work, but none of us would accept the pain he endured to
write as he did.
By: Billy McAleese