Shelley Costa Bloomfield - The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe Book: The life, times, and work of a tormented genius

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THE
EVERYTHING
GUIDE TO
EDGAR
ALLAN
POE

The Life, Times, and Work of
a Tormented Genius

Shelley Costa Bloomfield, Ph.D.

Foreword by Jeffrey A. Savoye,
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

For Edgar, who mattered

Copyright 2007, F+W Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.
Everything and are registered trademarks of F+W Publications, Inc.

Published by Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322 U.S.A.

www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN-10: 1-59869-527-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-527-4

Printed in Canada.

J I H G F E D C B A

Bloomfield, Shelley Costa.
The everything guide to Edgar Allan Poe / Shelley Costa Bloomfield.
p. cm. (The everything series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-527-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59869-527-4 (pbk.)
1. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849. 2. Authors, American
19th centuryBiography. I. Title.
PS2631.B57 2007
818.309dc22
2007018979

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

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Top Ten on the Poe Parade

Although born in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe was raised in Richmond, Virginia, and was a consummate Southern gentleman in the antebellum South.

Out of an early love for the militaryand to get out of his foster fathers housePoe enlisted in the U.S. Army, without parental consent, and served for two years.

Devastated by the death of his foster motherand as a swipe at his foster fatherPoe got himself expelled from West Point.

At twenty-seven, he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was thirteen at the time. Due to family objections, it was a secret ceremony.

Poe is considered the first professional American writer. His determination to make a living solely from his written work doomed him and his dependents to a life of poverty.

With a droll, deadpan sense of humor, Poe wrote several hoaxes so convincing that one ended up being reprinted as fact in the Congressional Record.

Poe was both the father of the modern detective story and an early author of science fiction. Crime detection was just another puzzle for himand he was an expert cryptographer.

His death in Baltimore in 1849 remains mysterious to this day. When he was discovered, unconscious, he appeared to be wearing someone elses clothing.

A bad judge of character, Poe entrusted his literary legacy to a man who despised him. This enemy was almost single-handedly responsible for the public perception of Poe as a drug addict and madman.

After midnight on every January nineteenth since 1949, a mysterious figure has placed flowers on Poes grave to commemorate the anniversary of the writers birth.

Thanks to Michael, Jess, Bec, and Lize, for showing an interest; to Marnie, for asking the questions; and to RBS, for teaching me how, all those years ago.

Edgar Allan Poe is an intriguing cipher, an enigma, a puzzle with no key. He might be a character from one of his own tales, or a merry prankster gently mocking readers who fall under his spell.

Poe yearned for fameand he achieved it, but he never managed to find the money he thought would be his just reward. He wanted to be a poet, but fate forced him to find other means to support his little family. Working as an editor for various magazines helped to pay his rent and put food on the table but left him with little time to follow his own muse. His collected works fill a scant seventeen volumes and are far outweighed by the words which have been written about him. His literary reputation now rests on a handful of evocative poems and powerful tales of mystery and horror.

Judging by the well-worn pages of most standard collections, Poes world seems populated by madmen and frail angelic women, all doomed to an unhappy end by obsession, the whims of fate, or dark and half-forgotten knowledge. Who is this man who could dream of a melancholy raven, a demonic cat, and a razor-wielding orangutan? Is Poe the defiant optimist of Israfel or the dystopian cynic of The Conqueror Worm? Is he a singer of truth or a charlatana genius or Emersons jingle-man?

Poe has been studied and analyzed, his works deconstructed and psychoanalyzed. He has been glorified as the prophet of Eureka, and vilified as an immoral drunkard. Even during his lifetime, Poe was a misunderstood object of curiosity. Some myths about him grew from his own tendency to weave a tale to cover an unhappy past, and others were added by people who did not know him or had felt the sting of his critical pen. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a secret enemy with a long savored grudge, became Poes first biographer. He sought to destroy Poes reputation with innuendo and accusations, suppressing Poes virtues and exaggerating Poes flaws, even forging letters to bolster his own claims and to isolate Poes friends. Ironically, Griswold created a mythic figure which captured the imagination of a generation and created much trouble for future scholars but brought Poes writings to a wider audience than he had ever enjoyed while he was alive.