Edgar Allan Poe.
eird, thrilling, and mysterious as are the poems and novels of this unfortunate man of genius, nothing that he ever wrote could call up the emotions of pity and regret more powerfully than the melancholy story of his own wayward career, and his sad and early death.
Much has recently been written about Poe, and no difficulty can be found in learning all that is known, with any certainty, of his singular career; but an impenetrable veil of mystery still obscures the record of several years of his life, in spite of all the research of his numerous biographers.
The name of Mr. John H. Ingram has long been associated with these investigations, and his pen has supplied biographical, and critical essays, to all the best modern editions of his works. Many of the following parodies are copied from the large collection formed by Mr. Ingram, and especial mention must here be made of the curious so-called “Spiritual Poems,” supposed to have been written by the shade of Poe, which will be referred to later on.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, United States, on January 19, 1809. His parents, who were actors, died leaving him an orphan at an early age; he was adopted by a wealthy childless couple, of the name of Allan, by whom he was brought to England in 1816, and placed in a school at Stoke Newington. In 1821 he returned to the United States, and spent some years in desultory study and romantic rambles abroad, of which very little, that is reliable, is known.
At length his friends obtained a nomination for him to the West Point Military Academy, to which institution he was admitted as a cadet on July 1, 1830. But Poe soon took a dislike to a military career, and wilfully set the authorities at defiance, so that they had no option but to expel him. Having thus cast away all chance of an honourable career in the United States army, Poe returned to Richmond, to the house of his only friend and protector, Mr. Allan. But that gentleman, incensed at his conduct, would not receive him, and Poe was thus thrown penniless on the world.
He had already published a few poems, and now adopted the precarious profession of journalism, at which he laboured hard for several years, and then, with no settled income, still almost unknown, and with few prospects of an encouraging character, he was rash enough to marry his cousin, a girl but a little over fourteen years of age. This was in May, 1836; after a few years of struggling poverty and anxiety, his young wife broke a blood-vessel, and although she lingered on several years, it was as a doomed invalid, whose death was almost daily expected.
Poe was much attached to his wife, and having a highly strung sensitive nature, the grief and anxiety about her, unfitted him at times for all mental labour. On such occasions Poe had recourse to drink, thus adding new sorrow and fresh misery to his already darkened home. Yet, during this melancholy period of his life, Poe produced many of his wonderful tales of the imagination, and was maturing his finest poems.