Edgar Allan Poe is an American writer and poet, known as the author of "scary" and mystical stories, as well as the poem "The Raven". He is also considered to be the forefather of detective and psychological prose. The image of this man is usually painted in gloomy and tragic colors - life did not spoil him, misfortunes rained down one after another, which led to his death at the age of 40. And after his death, he became a legend and remains it to this day.
Poe wrote a lot about tragedy, grief and broken heart - and all this from his own experience. To begin with, in early childhood he lost first his father (he left the family), then his mother, who died of tuberculosis. Edgar was taken into care by the wealthy family of John Allan - they gave the boy their last name as a second, but they did not officially adopt him. When Edgar was 20 years old, Francis Allan who raised him also died. And two years later, his older brother died. Art researchers argue that life's circumstances played a decisive role in the formation of Edgar Allan Poe as an author.
When Poe was 27 years old, he married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was to turn 14 in two months. By today's standards, this may look rather unusual, but at the time it was in the order of things, since girls were, on average, married at fifteen. Some biographers have suggested that during the first two years of marriage, the couple behaved more like brother and sister than husband and wife. But one thing is for sure: their relationship was true love. Alas, Virginia was only 24 years old when she passed away from tuberculosis after years of fighting it.
The Adventure of Arthur Gordon Pym is the only complete novel by Edgar Poe. Most of his works are short stories. The novel tells the story of sailors shipwrecked and forced to kill and eat one of the crew members, a man named Richard Parker. The book did not receive much recognition and even Poe himself called it "a very stupid book." But 46 years after the publication of this book, a similar story happened: the ship set sail from England to Australia, sank along the way, and the team ended up in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat. And in order to survive, they decided to kill and eat one of their comrades. What was his name? You guessed it: Richard Parker.
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Many people think that the poem "The Raven" is the main work of Edgar Poe, but he himself did not think so. He considered the prose poem "Eureka" to be his real masterpiece, but today few people know about him. And this poem, written in 1848, contains amazing predictions. That the universe was born as a result of a single event that gave rise to all particles, and that it could constantly expand. It must be understood that this idea became a scientific theory only in 1927 - 80 years after this poetic cosmological prediction was created.
From what exactly he died, no one knows and will never know. All medical records, including the death certificate, have been lost. There are many versions - tuberculosis, cholera, drug overdose, heart attack, brain tumor. By the way, if at that time the newspapers wrote that someone “died of a brain tumor,” this was another way to say that the person died of alcoholism. Edgar Allan Poe was found comatose on the street on October 3, 1849 and taken to the hospital. However, it was no longer possible to help him, and he died 4 days later without regaining consciousness. And no one ever found out what events preceded this tragedy.
A week before Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, he left Virginia to travel to New York. He needed to settle things before a new marriage (after the death of his wife, he decided to marry a childhood friend). No one knows what happened to him during that week, but when they found him, he simply did not look like himself - dirty, overgrown, with a lifeless extinct look. The clothes on him were clearly not his, but someone else's - an old coat, all stained, worn boots, a shabby straw hat. This was not like Po, because he always carefully monitored his appearance. By the way, there was no luggage with him.
Edgar Poe said that it was a challenge to himself - to write a poem of 100 lines that could easily be read in one breath. At first he was going to write not about a crow, but about a parrot, but then he realized that a parrot is not suitable. It was published in 1845 and overnight made Poe famous - truly famous. You may think that it brought him some kind of financial benefit, but no, this was not the case at all. The author received about $ 9 for the publication of The Crow.
The writer was buried by his cousins the day after his death, which was too haste for that time. The funeral took place on a cold, windy day and took less than three minutes. The priest didn't even deliver the sermon. One of the relatives who attended the funeral said: "I had nothing to do with him during his lifetime and I do not want to have anything to do with him after his death."
Even after the death of Edgar Poe, failures continued to haunt him: his obituary was drawn up by a longtime rival at work who disliked the writer. And this obituary was long, pejorative and openly slanderous. It began like this: “Edgar Poe is dead. He died the day before yesterday in Baltimore. This news will amaze many, but few will sadden. By the way, it was written under a pseudonym. In the obituary, Edgar Poe is presented as an insane drunk, a libertine and a drug addict. Almost all of this text was a lie. Today it is known for sure that the writer was not a drug addict.
When Edgar Poe was 18 years old, he served in the army and at the same time published his first collection of poetry. This collection was called "Tamerlane and Other Poems" and it did not even indicate the authorship. Only 50 copies were printed and this work, of course, remained very few people noticed (which was a big blow to Poe's ambition). It is believed that only 12 copies of that publication have survived to our time and today they are of exceptional value. In 2009, one such copy was sold at Christie's in New York for a record $ 662,500. Edgar Poe would love that.
Poe was originally buried without a headstone and in the backyard of the cemetery. There was nothing on the grave except a stone slab with the number 80. 24 years after his death, in 1873, one poet visited the grave and was outraged by its deplorable state. He wrote about this in the newspaper and began collecting funds for the reburial of the writer. In 1875, a reburial was carried out, moving the grave closer to the facade of the church, and a tombstone was erected. The grave of Edgar Allan Poe is located at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground on the grounds of the University of Maryland College of Law.
Lizzie Dothen was an American poet, women's rights activist and medium. She lived in the 19th century. In 1863, Lizzie Dothen published a collection of poems called Poems from the Spiritual World and made it clear that several works were written under the “direct influence of the spirit” of writers such as William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. Nice try, Lizzie.
In 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Poe entered the University of Virginia. He chose ancient and modern languages to study, but soon problems arose due to his passion for gambling, which led to large debts. The guardian refused to pay Edgar's debts, quarreled with him and, as a result, kicked him out of the house. I had to leave the university, since there was nothing to pay for it either. Poe moved to Boston and started the life of a poor, odd-job writer. Quarrels and reconciliation with the guardian continued for several more years, but it all ended in a final break in relations. Needless to say, when John Allan passed away, Edgar Allan Poe was not in the will?
A year after the story of leaving the university, Edgar Poe was already in such a desperate situation that he decided to join the army. He added 4 years to himself and said that he was already 22 and his name was Edgar. A. Perry. He served in the army for two years (as a clerk at the headquarters) and was promoted to chief sergeant of an artillery regiment. He later retired from the army and entered the West Point Military Academy. A military career seemed to be developing successfully, but after a serious quarrel with his guardian and a final break with him, Edgar Poe decided to leave the academy and made sure that he was expelled. He was tried by a military court for gross violation of official duties and disregard of orders, and was fired from service.
During his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe received little recognition, but later became a cult figure. The Edgar Allan Poe Museum is located in Richmond, Virginia, and although Poe never lived in the building where the museum is located, it contains the things that surrounded him during his lifetime - furniture (even his crib and his sister's piano), manuscripts, a collection of his works - including the first and rare editions, such as the poetry collection "Tamerlane and Other Poems", for example.
