Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. His parents, who
were actors, died before their son was three years old. Mr. Allan, a
wealthy Richmond merchant, adopted the child and gave him a splendid
home. How scantily Poe appreciated and improved the advantages of this
kindness he himself confesses in a letter to Lowell in 1844. "I have
been too deeply conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal
things to give any continuous effort to anything—to be consistent in
anything. My life has been _whim_—impulse—passion—a longing for
solitude—a scorn of all things present in an earnest desire for the
future." He was a dreamer who had a fair chance to be happy, but he
flung the opportunity away. He was a spoiled child who remained
ignorant of life even unto his death.
He entered the University of Virginia in 1826, where his conduct was so
bad that he was, after a year, removed from the college. This action
broke the strong friendship Mr. Allan had long held for his adopted
son. Poe, urged by a hot temper or possibly by a remorse for his
actions, ran away and enlisted in the regular army. In 1829 Mr. Allan
became partially reconciled with Poe, and again came to his assistance.
In 1830 Poe entered West Point, but was there only a short time when he
was dismissed for wilful neglect of duty.
Following this dismissal Poe went to Baltimore, where he did hack work
for newspapers. This was the beginning of a process of writing that has
brought him high rank and an imperishable honor. His narrative is
clear, compressed, and powerful, and throughout his writings choice
symbols abound. He was fond of themes of death, insanity, and terror.
The wonder of it all is that this struggling, poverty-stricken
craftsman, irregular in his habits of living, using only negative life
and shadowy abstractions, should, from out his disordered fancies,
weave stories and poems of such undying beauty and force.
Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Her health
was always delicate and her death confirmed Poe's tendency toward
dissipation. His life was filled with dire poverty and a hard struggle
for a livelihood. His home relations were happy. The last years of his
life were spent at Fordham, a suburb of New York. He died in a
Baltimore hospital, October 7, 1849.