Hi there, guys! I don’t know if you remember, but in one of my previous posts (which you can check out right here: Top 10 Best Books To Read Around Halloween), I promised you an article dedicated to our beloved Horror writer, Edgar Allan Poe. Well, here it is! I hope you’ll like it!
Introduction:
Edgar Allan Poe ( January 19, 1809- October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country’s earliest practitioners of the short story. He is also generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
A Tiny Theory:
Upon the mysterious death of Americaâs master of mystery and the macabre, the literary rival of Edgar Allan Poe wrote a scathing obituary and biography of the author. However, much of what was written by Poeâs foe, Rufus Griswold, was untrue. Vengeful over things Poe had written about Griswold, the latterâs postmortem portrait of Poe painted him as a womanizing madman, drug-addled and bereft of both morals and friends.
Although far from the truth, many of Griswoldâs distortions stuck. It was the only biography of Poe at the time â and a well-read one at that â and in combination with the tone of some of Poeâs work, it was convincing to a public wanting to believe in the scandalous darkness of the writer. Even though purported letters from Poe to Griswold âprovingâ his lunacy were later found to be forged â and Poeâs friends vehemently denied the salacious slander â to this day the image of Poe as a raving odd bird persists.
A century and a half later, perhaps the oddest thing about Edgar Allan Poe is that he wasnât very odd at all, relatively speaking. He wasnât lurking in cemeteries and caressing caskets, but in fact was a hardworking and brilliant pioneer who changed the face of American literature. With that in mind, here are some of the more oddly normal things to know about one of Americaâs most innovative authors.
Little known facts:
1. He married his cousin
And not only that she was his first cousin, but she was 13 years old, while he was 27. Yeah, I know you’ll probably say that those were the times, but I just think that no other woman would’ve got over the fact that he was nothing more than a poor writer. Talented. Yes, very talented indeed. But poor. Materialistic times…
However, his wife passed away at the age of 24, due to tuberculosis.
2. He was an orphan
He was born in a family full of artists, his siblings being talented writers. Also, his parents were actors, and they were working at a Shakespearean Theater when Edgar was born. (It is believed that his parents named him after one of Shakespeare’s characters.)
Everything was all fun and stuff, until baby Edgar turned 4 years old. His parents died, and he was adopted by a wealthy couple, John Allan and his wife Francis. They christened the boy with the name Edgar Allan Poe.
3. He invented a new profession
He is now known as the first American writer to ever stick to this job (even though he was starving and was always out of money). The thing is, as a kid, he found his inspiration in the British writers’ works (mostly in Lord Byron’s ones) his dream being that, one day, he would be able to write as a full time job. He didn’t get to do so, however, until his poem “The Raven” got published.
His foster father though, being a merchant, wished his son would follow his path in business. When it became clear for him that Edgar was not willing to follow this sort of career, he disinherited his son, leaving all of his money to a child that he never met.
4. His death remains a blurry situation
But then, what other end would have suited better this guy?
In 1849, Poe went missing for five days and was found “worse for the wear” and delirious in Baltimore. He was taken to the hospital where he died soon after, at the age of 40. No autopsy was performed, the cause of death was listed as a vague “congestion of the brain” and he was buried two days later. Experts and scholars have proposed everything from murder and rabies to dipsomania and carbon monoxide poisoning as the reason for his demise, but to this day, the cause of Edgar Allan Poe’s death remains a mystery.
5. He was a “Hoaxter, liar, impostor and plagiarizer”, according to Kaplan
Poe as he claimed to be, was the best when it came to deception and perversion. In living his life and even in his manner of negotiating death, Poe was a captive of the imp of perversity. But with art as his shield, the realms of perversity became a haven for his troubled soul. . .
Perversion is a complex strategy of mind, with its unique principles for regulating the negotiations between desire and authority. To achieve its aims, the perverse strategy employs mechanisms of mystification, concealment and illusion, devices characteristic of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
6. He is the “parent” of the Detective Novels
Upon writing “The Crimes in Rue Morgue”, Edgar was giving the world of Literature something new and strange. Something that readers never experienced before: a Detective novel, thus giving birth to a whole new genre of books, that began to be adopted by writers, as in the case of Sherlock Holmes’s or Hercule Poirot’s creation. Of course, the book was written using the same tools as his Horror poems and short stories: terrifying descriptions, creepy ways of dying, a dark, yet rational mindset of the negative character and a strange philosophy.
7. His enemy wrote his obituary
One of Poeâs professional and personal rivals Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote a lengthy obituary for his enemy that was so libelous Griswold signed it with a pseudonym. The article portrayed Poe as a mad, drunken, womanizing opium addict who based his darkest tales on personal experience. Griswold expanded this account into a brief memoir of the author, and Griswoldâs distorted picture of Poe influenced popular opinion of the author for over a century.
8. His cat couldn’t live without her master
After Poe’s mother-in-law found out about his death, she also found his tortoiseshell cat and best friend Catterina dead.
9. He referred to himself as “Eddy”
The name “Poe” instantly conjures up images of madmen entombing victims inside walls and ravens perching above chamber doors, and “Edgar” has a nice, Gothic ring to it. Yet in letters penned to the women he loved, Poe often referred to himself as “Eddy” â a decidedly more boyish and casual moniker.
10. He was an athlete
One might assume that an author famous for his tales of the macabre would have spent his teen years as an angsty Goth boy. While thatâs true to an extent, young Poe was also known to compete in running, boxing, and long jump events. When he was fifteen, he achieved local fame by swimming six miles up Virginiaâs James River.
11. He was said to have been an Opium addict
Many of Poeâs protagonists used opium, but the myth that Poe himself was a drug addict probably originated in 1845 when a reviewer compared his work to âthe strange outpourings of an opium eater.â Two physicians who knew him stated that they never saw any indications of Poe using the drugâand one of those two men, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, hated Poe as much as Rufus Wilmot Griswold did!
12. His reputation of being a madman was invented by his rival
Two days after Poeâs death, the New York Daily Tribune published an obituary written for him by a man who called himself âLudwig.â Among other claims, the article said of Poe, âHe walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses.â In reality, Ludwig was Poeâs bitter rival Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a writer, editor, and literary criticâone of the many enemies Poe made as a result of his own work as a critic. In 1850, Griswold published the first biography of Poe, âMemoir of the Author,â a scathing piece filled with fabrications and forged letters that haunt Poeâs reputation to this day.
13. Poe kept writing even after he died
At least, if you believe the rather outlandish claim of Lizzie Doten, the psychic medium whose 1863 book, Poems from the Inner Life, included poems which Doten claimed to have received from the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe. Perhaps Doten spied a chance to increase the popularity of her own rather mediocre verses by attaching Poeâs name to the project! Or… who knows? Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were actually true!
14. He had a terrible gambling addiction
This is the reason why he dropped out of University, after only one semester spent there. His foster father insisted that he should continue his studies, but at a Military College. Edgar, as expected, refused, and this is how he remained with only the High School graduated.
Final Note:
I really hope you enjoyed this article! Please let me know in the comments which fact is your favourite and what writer you’d like the next article to be about. đ
LOL (Lots Of Love), âĄPatryâĄ
Resources of documentation:
http://youtube.com/WeirdHistory
Patry's writings 