"Appallment and misfortune race through the centuries in unchecked haste."
Thus began "Metzengerstein: A Tale in Imitation of the German" by Edgar Allan Poe.
This statement also seems to reflect the life of the world-famous writer. Although he achieved global fame posthumously, "appallment and misfortune" also marked Poe's life.
Childhood & Teenage Years
On January 19, 1809, Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as the middle child. The little boy and his two siblings, Henry and Rosalie, lost their mother, Eliza (short for Elizabeth), in 1812. Their father, David Poe, left the family just one year after Edgar's birth.
Both parents were actors and left no significant inheritance for their children, which is why they were separated and placed with different families. However, after initial difficulties, a lively correspondence developed between Henry and Edgar, which lasted throughout their lives and revealed that the brothers were close. The alias "Henry le Rennêt," which Poe would later occasionally use, was also inspired by his brother's name, "Henry Leonard."
As an orphan, Edgar Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, who raised him. He adopted the surname Allan because of them, but rarely used it in his publications and preferred to publish as "Edgar A. Poe." Although the Allans were wealthy, they never officially adopted Poe. This was likely because Edgar never got along well with John Allan during his youth, despite having a good bond with his stepmother. The head of the family did not want to leave his inheritance to a "worthless poet," which left Poe without a penny after the death of his foster parents.
At seventeen, the aspiring writer studied at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which had only recently been founded by Thomas Jefferson. There, he quickly amassed frighteningly high debts— the university was the most expensive educational institution in America at the time, and Poe found himself as an outsider in an elite environment where he wanted to prove himself. However, like his brother Henry before him, Poe fell into alcoholism during this period of his life.
Due to his high debts (which had now reached around $2,000), a fierce argument broke out between father and son. Since Poe was also a good athlete, he decided to join the army in 1827. To meet the requirements for admission, the 18-year-old claimed to be 22 years old, as he urgently needed an income. After an honorable discharge, Poe wanted to continue his career as an officer and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. There, he told the other cadets that he was the great-grandson of the famous traitor Benedict Arnold—whether they believed him is unknown.
However, financial difficulties continued to haunt him at West Point, as he had begun gambling, and he had to drop out of the academy. At times, his financial situation was so dire that he found himself forced to beg passersby on the street for money to afford something to eat, with only $4.50 in his pocket.
Edgar A. Poe as a husband
After this failed attempt to make a name for himself in the army, Poe moved to Baltimore in 1831 to live with his aunt. Shortly thereafter, his brother Henry died from alcohol poisoning. From 1835, he worked in Baltimore as an editor and began to support himself through writing. Three years later, he became engaged to his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm—Poe was already 26 at the time. For the standards of the day, this was an unwelcome but tolerated union. They behaved more like brother and sister; Poe himself referred to his fiancée Virginia as "Sissy" (little sister) and affectionately called his aunt Maria "Muddy" (Mommy).
Despite these positive prospects, a few cautionary words from Thomas W., the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger for whom Poe wrote, revealed the challenges facing the rising writer:
“Edgar, if you wander these streets again, I fear you will drink until you are completely out of your mind. […] You can’t trust anyone who drinks before breakfast!”
Thomas W.’s concern for Poe is likely explained by the surge in popularity that the Messenger experienced while Poe was writing for him. According to Poe, the sales figures rose from under 1,000 to 5,000 copies due to his contributions. This increase was partly attributed to Poe’s emerging reputation as a sharp-tongued literary critic, which, while it did not necessarily enhance his overall popularity, brought him into the public eye.
Edgar Allan Poe married Virginia Eliza Clemm in 1836. Since she was only 13¾ years old at the time, her age was listed as 21 on the marriage certificate, as confirmed by a witness present at the ceremony. The beautiful girl was perceived as ethereal due to her pale skin, dark eyes, and raven-black hair—a type of woman Poe often portrayed in many of his stories. However, she fell ill with tuberculosis and, after a five-year battle with the disease, she succumbed to it on January 30, 1847.
Death of a young, beautiful women
Virginia's passing was a severe blow for Poe. Both his depression and alcoholism worsened in the following months, culminating in a suicide attempt in 1848. A friend described Poe during this time as follows:
"It seemed as though he did not care whether he lived for an hour, a day, a week, or a year after she was gone. She was his everything."
Poe took an overdose of laudanum, which fortunately had no fatal consequences. Contrary to the widespread belief that he was addicted to opium, this was the only time he resorted to that substance. Afterward, Poe set the goal of regaining control of his life.
He penned several works in which he processed the death of his wife, including "A Dream Within a Dream" and "Annabel Lee." Since Poe had to bury both his mother and his stepmother, as well as his wife, it’s no surprise that a recurring motif in his poems and stories is the death of a beautiful young woman.
In the following period, he sought a new partner and became engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster, a childhood friend. She was approximately the same age as Poe and was regarded as wealthy, intelligent, and educated.
It seemed that Poe was on the upswing again. Therefore, the circumstances of his death remain a mystery to this day, surrounded by dozens of speculations and theories.
The man in the gutter
Poe began his return journey from his hometown of Boston to his current residence in New York on September 27, 1849. He intended to discuss his planned wedding in more detail and to attract new subscribers for his magazine, The Stylus.
How he ended up completely disheveled, dressed in ragged, seemingly foreign clothing, and barely conscious in a gutter in Baltimore remains a mystery to this day. A passerby noticed him and, at Poe's request, contacted an acquaintance. Consequently, he was taken to Washington College Hospital in Baltimore. According to eyewitness reports, Poe repeatedly murmured the name "Reynold," but this was never confirmed.
When he regained consciousness in the hospital, he refused alcohol and could only drink water with great difficulty. On October 7 of the same year, he died in the hospital from unknown causes. From today's perspective, it is even more challenging to ascertain the exact circumstances and causes of Poe's death, as the attending physician contradicted himself multiple times.
Numerous theories about Edgar A. Poe's death circulate, ranging from murder or suicide to syphilis, diabetes, cholera, rabies, epilepsy, and even carbon monoxide poisoning. Since the hospital records have not survived, his death will forever remain a mystery, contributing to his reputation as a macabre and dark figure in history.
His literary legacy was to be managed by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. This was possibly a "final cynical joke or a form of posthumous masochism." Although Griswold published a collected works of Poe, he took every opportunity to tarnish his reputation, for instance in biographical notes or an anonymous obituary. In the latter, Griswold accused Poe of alcohol and drug abuse and claimed that Poe was insane.
Influence in America & Europe
Despite many supporters, Poe was for a long time seen by the majority of Americans as a poor good-for-nothing with too high expectations. Particularly the numerous negative reviews he wrote swayed public opinion in this direction. Moreover, the feeling of existential lostness surrounding both his works and the author clashed with the progressive-minded Americans.
In Europe, however, his work received much recognition. He influenced other notable writers such as:
Jules Verne ("Journey to the Center of the Earth"),
Fyodor Dostoevsky ("War and Peace," "The Idiot," "Crime and Punishment"),
Charles Baudelaire ("Les Fleurs du mal"),
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sherlock Holmes stories),
Agatha Christie ("Murder on the Orient Express"),
Oscar Wilde ("Salomé," "The Picture of Dorian Gray"), and
Stephen King ("IT," "Pet Sematary").
The enthusiasm, especially driven in France by Baudelaire, also spilled over into Germany. As a result, many German translations are not based on the English original but rather stem from the French version. Furthermore, a universal, definitively correct translation of Poe's works is more challenging than with other authors, as he often made posthumous changes to seemingly completed works. Consequently, for some pieces, there exist well-known titles alongside lesser-known alternatives. "The Oval Portrait" should be familiar to many, while the title "Life in Death" (or, in the original language, "Life in Death") may not ring any bells, even though it refers to the same short story. This is because Poe sold his works to various newspapers to generate more income, but he revised them before nearly every publication—or modified the title. (By comparison, his most famous poem, "The Raven," was printed 19 times in different newspaper editions during Poe's short lifetime, not to mention book editions that have been overlooked here.)
However, the diversity was not only present in the various versions of his works but also in their richness of content. Although Poe is known for his short stories and poems, he also wrote two novels, satire, worked as a literary critic, and composed essays on natural and literary science. While most of his theories are now considered disproven, Poe is generally respected for the consistency and boldness he displayed, particularly in the development of physical theories.
His text "Eureka" (original title "Eureka. An Essay on the Material and Spiritual Universe") was regarded by Poe himself as his masterpiece. Today, it is considered one of his lesser-known texts, which is quite surprising: In his longest non-fiction work, he essentially predicted the Big Bang theory—46 years before its founder, Georges Lemaître, was even born.
German translators worked meticulously to translate the complete works of Poe, fueled by the wave of enthusiasm sweeping through Europe. Their compatriots cheered. Well-known figures such as Sigmund Freud and Franz Kafka were influenced by Poe's thoughts, and literary expressionism in Germany would not have become what it ultimately embodied without the American writer. Through his work, he set a milestone in horror and crime literature worldwide. In some aspects, Poe even shaped the early beginnings of the science fiction genre and, of course, foremost the horror literature.
Especially in horror literature, Poe shifted the focus from sheer shock elements typical of splatter films to "terror of the soul." He captivatingly reveals the human abyss to the reader. To what extent Poe drew such impressions from his own life has been debated by biographers ever since. The supernatural elements in his stories can often be "explained away" on a psychological level, which lends them a terrifying authenticity.
The title "Father of the Short Story" is not without reason attributed to Poe. He was the first to use this term in a verifiable way, thus shaping our language to this day.
The influence of the writer extends so far that we still feel its effects in our daily lives. Anyone who does not know the characters Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. John Watson is likely living on the moon. However, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, often mistakenly believed to be the first to employ the image of the deductive genius, was himself heavily influenced by Poe’s character C. Auguste Dupin. The nameless first-person narrator in Poe's story takes on the role that would later be called the Watson character. (This character serves as a pretext for exposition, allowing the "genius" to explain his conclusions to the "cognitively inferior person," and thus to the reader.) With the three short stories about Dupin ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt," and "The Purloined Letter"), Poe shaped the crime and detective genre long before the word "detective" was used.
Even though Poe popularized the fascination for this stereotype, he was not its inventor. While it is not incorrect to label Poe as the "father of the detective novel," Dupin was also not the first of his kind.
The German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann (known, among other works, for "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," the basis for Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker") introduced a deductive character in 1820 with "The Lady of Scuderi."
The only reason this achievement is later attributed to Poe is the simple fact that Poe gained worldwide fame particularly with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
Critics of Poe should also not be overlooked when illuminating the poet's legacy. W.B. Yeats ("The Second Coming," "The Stolen Child") found Poe's writing style to be "vulgar." Additionally, T.S. Eliot ("The Waste Land," "The Hollow Men") believed that his actions, characters, and ideas had potential, but simultaneously lamented the poor execution of Poe's works.
Poe & Pop (-Culture)
Around 1949/50, myths began to form about an unknown figure who, clad in black, visited the grave of the writer in Baltimore on the anniversary of Poe's death. This figure would drink a glass of cognac, place three roses and the remaining bottle of cognac on the grave, and then disappear. Dubbed the "Poe Toaster" by the media (derived from "to toast"), this figure repeated this small ritual every October 7th until the nocturnal visits came to an end in 2009.
Baltimore's football team also pays tribute to the author by calling themselves the "Baltimore Ravens," named after Poe's poem "The Raven," which was written in Baltimore.
Even The Simpsons adapted "The Raven" as well as the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," one of the most famous short stories by Poe.
The author is also well-known for his great love of cats, which is why he is often depicted in pop culture accompanied by a raven or a black cat. This special bond Poe had with cats is evident in many of his works. In "The Black Cat," the first-person narrator describes the transformation of a once-animal-loving young man into a psychotic murderer—triggered by a black cat. Additionally, Poe wrote a short essay about his favorite animal titled "Instinct vs. Reason: A Black Cat," as well as "Incoherent Thoughts on Cats," which is exactly what it sounds like. It is often claimed that a black cat would rest on Poe's lap or shoulder while he wrote. While this has never been substantiated, there is also no compelling counter-argument. Regardless, it is a lovely notion. It is almost ironic, then, that one of the speculated causes of Poe's death was rabies from a cat bite.
Whether one enthusiastically devours his works or prefers to set them aside, the literary legacy of Edgar Allan Poe has not lost its significance to this day, and thousands of readers continue to enjoy the eerie images he conjures with just a few lines.
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