Three of Allan Poe's terrifying tales of madness are presented here. In The Black Cat, the crazy narrator's horrible crime is exposed to the police by his cat. The wild artist in The Oval Portrait takes the life out of his wife to be able to put it on canvas, and in The Tell-Tale Heart, a dead man's beating heart reveals the murderer to the police.
Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his tales of horror. He is also considered the inventor of the modern detective story, the modern short story itself and modernist poetry. In addition he was one of the earliest creators of science fiction. His stories were also the basis for that great popular art form, the horror film. More books have been written about Edgar Allan Poe than any other American author. In part, this is because of his great artistic influence, but also because his life was as mysterious and tragic as his stories and poems.
He was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. His parents were both actors. His mother, who went to the United States in 1796 from England, was a very good actress. Magazines and newspapers wrote good things about her. At the age of 15 she already knew more than 70 different theatrical roles. Edgar's father, on the other hand, was a very bad actor and could not make enough money to support his family. In fact, when Edgar was only two years old his father left the family. Nobody knows where he went.
This is the beginning of Edgar's troubles. Soon after his father left, his mother became very ill with tuberculosis. Nobody helped her. She was only twenty-four years old and had three children. She died on December 8, 1811. Edgar was only two years old.
Fortunately, Mrs Frances Allan, the wife of John Allan, a businessman from Richmond, Virginia, heard about the Poe children. As an act of charity she decided to bring Edgar to live in her house. She was impressed with his good looks. Mrs Allan's husband agreed to have Edgar live in their house, but he refused to officially adopt him. Mr Allan did not want his heir to be the son of actors. Acting at this time was considered an immoral profession.
Edgar suffered because of this decision, and his relationship with Mr Allan was never good. In 1815 the Allans, together with Edgar, went to live in England for five years. When they returned to the United States in 1820 Edgar went to private schools in Richmond. In 1826 he went to the University of Virginia. He was a very good student, but Mr Allan did not send him enough money to live. In order to make money for school, Edgar gambled. But he was not a good gambler and lost money. John Allan still refused to help him. Edgar had to get a job as a clerk.
In 1827 he published his first book of poems. In this same year he joined the United States Army. In 1829 he went to West Point, the American military academy. In this period, after the death of his wife, John Allan ended forever is relationship with Edgar. In 1832 Edgar went to Baltimore to live with his aunt and his 11-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. In 1833 Edgar won a literary contest for his sort story "MS. Found in a Bottle". This is the beginning of Edgar's professional career as a writer.
From 1835 to 1837 he worked as the editor of the literary magazine Southern Literary Messenger. He did an extremely good job: sales increased from 500 to 3,500 copies. As editor he explored new areas He wrote reviews for Latin grammars, dictionaries, other magazines, novels and poetry. He was a fair but very severe critic. He did not care if an author was famous or not. He wrote what he though.
In 1836, while Edgar was working for the Southern Literary Messenger, he married his cousin Virginia Clemm. Like Edgar's mother, she had tuberculosis, and for the next ten years until her death she was constantly ill.
Even with Edgar's success as an editor he did not make enough money to support his family. He therefore moved to New York and then to Philadelphia in 1838 and then back to New York in 1844, always looking for better jobs.
In 1840 he published his greatest tales in a collection called Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. In 1843 he wrote "The Gold Bug", a kind of treasure hunt story with hidden clues, which sold 300,000 copies. This story brought Poe fame, but not financial security. In fact he often worked 15 hours a day, and still he did not have enough money to feed his family.
In 1845 Edgar's most famous poem, "The Raven", was published. He was finally successful. But in 1847 his wife died. This "intolerable sorrow" caused Edgar to drink, and, it seems, he had a very low tolerance for alcohol. He returned to Richmond in 1849. Edgar's sadness for the death of his wife and his drinking made him ill. On October 3, 1849 Edgar was found unconscious in front of a voting station in Baltimore. He was taken to hospital, where he died four days later.
Edgar's misfortune did not end with his death. The man who controlled his literary works, Rufus Griswold, was very jealous of Edgar's genius. He wrote the official obituary of Edgar in which he spoke very badly of Edgar. Because of this obituary Edgar's reputation was destroyed for many years. In addition, shortly before his death Edgar had revised all his works, but Griswold only published some of them, and often without Edgar's corrections.
Fortunately, though, the great French poet Charles Baudelaire spent 14 years translating Edgar's stories, which then became extremely important for French literature. Then when French literature became important for English literature, Edgar was finally considered as an important writer in England and America.
Edgar's Life
Edgar's Horror
Edgar's Detective Stories
The Black Cat
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The Oval Portrait
Chapter One
Chapter Two
A Short History of the "Whodunit"
The Tell-Tale Heart
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Two Kings of Hollywood Horror
