Edgar Allan Poe

On May 16, 1836, Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, at a public ceremony at Baltimore. It was conducted by a Presbyterian minister, Rev. Amasa Converse and her age was listed as twenty-one.

Different biographers have different opinions about the nature of their relationship. Some believe they lived like siblings while others claim that he loved her with passionate devotion of a lover. But on the whole, he was a loving husband and a dutiful son-in-law.

In January 1842, Virginia showed the first sign of tuberculosis. She never fully recovered from it and died on January 30, 1847.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts. At the time of his birth, both his parents were struggling actors, attached to a repertory company in Boston.

Edgar’s father, David Poe Jr., abandoned his career in law to become an actor; but was not very successful in that, possibly due to stage-fright. Contrarily, his mother, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, was an accomplished actress, praised for acting ability as well as for her melodious voice and attractive figure.

Edgar, the second of his parents’ three children, was born while his parents were living in a boarding house near Boston Commons. He had an elder brother called William Henry Leonard Poe, often referred to as Henry Poe and a younger sister called Rosalie.

In the summer of 1809, few months after Edgar’s birth in Boston, the family relocated to New York. Very shortly, short-tempered and alcoholic, David Poe abandoned his family, never to return. Eliza, at that time pregnant with Rosalie, was left alone to take care of their two sons.

Alone in New York, struggling to make the ends meet, Eliza developed tuberculosis and died from it on December 8, 1811, leaving her three children orphaned. It is believed David Poe died in Norfolk on December 11, 1811, three days after his wife’s death.

On his return to Richmond, Edgar Allan Poe found that the already strained relationship with his foster father had gone worse. His girlfriend had also got engaged to somebody else. Feeling unwelcomed, he left for Boston in April 1827.

Initially he tried to sustain himself doing odd jobs. Finally on May 27, 1827, he enlisted in the United States Army for five years as a private, calling himself Edgar A. Perry. While he was actually 18, he claimed to be 22 because anybody under 21 needed parental consent.

He was initially posted at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor with a salary of $5 a month. While leaving home, he had brought several manuscripts and in the spring of 1827, he self-published his first book of poems, ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’, attributing the credit to ‘a Bostonian’.

In November 1827, Poe was posted with his regiment at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina. Here he was promoted to the position of "artificer”, receiving $10 per month, subsequently becoming Sergeant Major for Artillery.

Sometime in end of 1828 or the beginning of 1829, Poe tried to end his enlistment. But for that, he needed to reconcile with his foster father. Although John Allan was not initially responsive, he relented when Edgar visited Richmond on receiving the news of Mrs. Allan’s death on February 28, 1829.

On leaving the Military Academy, Edgar Allan Poe first went to New York, where he published his third book, entitled ‘Poems’. His friends at the Academy pitched in to raise the publication cost.

In May 1831, he returned to Baltimore to live with his paternal family. By then, John Allan had disowned him. To earn his living, he now turned his attention to prose; having many of them published in ‘Philadelphia Saturday Courier’ and ‘Baltimore Saturday Visiter’.

In 1833, Poe submitted six stories and a few poems in a contest sponsored by Baltimore Saturday Visiter. Among them, ‘MS. Found in a Bottle’ earned the first prize of $50. Published in the Visiter’s 19 October issue, it caught the attention of novelist and Whig politician, John P. Kennedy.

With Kennedy’s support, Poe’s literally career began to advance. Yet, his financial condition remained precarious. Finally, in August 1835, Kennedy helped him to secure the post of the assistant editor at Southern Literary Messenger, published from Richmond. He was also the staff writer and critic.

Except for a brief interlude, when Poe lost his job after being caught drunk, he remained with the journal until January 1837, publishing several poems, stories, book reviews and critiques. Thereafter, he moved to New York.