Where to Start with Edgar Allan Poe

The Master of Macabre, the Father of American Gothic, Detective Fiction, and the Short Story, Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Best known for his dark tales of horror, psychological terror, and madness, Poe’s own life was marked by both internal and external tragedies that undoubtedly shaped his work. 

Born to traveling actor parents as Edgar Poe, his father, David Poe Jr., abandoned the family, leaving Poe and his two siblings with their actress mother, Elizabeth “Eliza” Arnold Hopkins Poe, who died a year later from tuberculosis. While he was much too young (only two years old) to truly remember his birth mother, she was the first in a long string of women he loved that he would lose.  

"The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” —Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition”

After the death of his birth mother, Poe and his siblings were split up and sent to live with separate families. Poe was left in the care of John and Frances Allan, a well-to-do family from Richmond, Virginia. Rechristened Edgar Allan Poe, he went on to live a comfortable early life with his foster family. He was educated at private academies and even traveled abroad. By all accounts, Poe was close to his foster mother, but his relationship with his foster father worsened over time. By the time he was an adult, Poe was disowned by the Allan family altogether.

After a failed attempt at the University of Virginia, where his gambling left him in severe debt, Poe enrolled in the U.S. Army in 1827. It was around this time that he began to publish poetry seriously, releasing Tamerlane and Other Poems the same year. In 1829, his foster mother, Frances Allan, died, marking the second loss of a prominent female figure in his life. That same year he published his second book of poems, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. 

After a stint in the army, he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he was dishonorably discharged for neglect of duty in 1831. Ultimately he chose a life as a writer over military service. Most notably, he was the first American author to try to make a professional living as a writer. He published his third volume of poetry, Poems, in 1831.

From that point on, he worked as a writer, editor, and literary critic for several newspapers and magazines, traveling around cities on the East coast from Richmond, Virginia to Boston, Massachusetts. 

He published his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1839, which included one of his most famous short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher." In 1841, he released “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the first modern detective story, which would later go on to inspire the creator of the most famous detective of all time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Murder, death, madness, grief, and psychological horror were common themes in his work, which fit the dour spirit of the Victorian age. Indeed, this time period saw a rise in Gothic literature and early works of horror. He continued to publish his stories and poems in newspapers and magazines to mixed critical success. 

Although Poe’s work would eventually gain widespread respect, he never achieved true financial success during his lifetime and constantly struggled to earn a living. While reviews of his work were mixed, his first undeniable success came with the publication of his poem “The Raven,” which was published in The Evening Mirror in 1845 and became instantly popular among the literary crowd. The story of a man gone mad with grief over the death of his beloved is undoubtedly one of Poe’s most recognizable works. Considering the tragedy that marred Poe’s personal life up to that point, it is easy to see where he found inspiration. 

In 1836, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. The marriage lasted eleven years before Virginia’s death in 1847. The couple produced no children. Poe’s most prolific writing period coincided with Virginia’s contraction of tuberculosis in 1841, the disease which ultimately claimed her life. As there was no cure, Poe had to helplessly watch his wife slowly succumb to the illness. This caused him to sink into a deep depression and, eventually, alcoholism. 

In a letter to George W. Eveleth, Poe wrote: 

“Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her forever & underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of a year the vessel broke again—I went through precisely the same scene . . . Each time I felt all the agonies of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly & clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive—nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” New-York — Jan. 4, 1848.

Perhaps befitting of a master of mystery and horror, Poe’s death has been the cause of much speculation. On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of delirium lying in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland after last being seen a week earlier in Richmond, Virginia.  No one knew how he had gotten there, and no one can agree on what exactly caused his state of delirium or his death. He remained in a state of semi-consciousness for the four days leading up to his death on Sunday, October 7, 1849. To this day, no one can say what happened during Poe’s last week on Earth. 

Poe’s impact on literature cannot be overstated. He developed and popularized the short story format with works like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Cask of Amantillado.” He created the detective genre with “The Murders of the Rue Morgue,” and his poems such as “Annabel Lee” are filled with hauntingly beautiful lyrics that perfectly capture the narrator’s pain and devastation. Named after him, the Edgar Award, one of the most prestigious awards for works in the mystery genre, is offered by the Mystery Writers of America every year. 

For nearly a century after his death, a lone, anonymous figure dressed in black could be spotted at Poe's gravesite in Baltimore, Maryland every year on the poet's birthday. The “Poe Toaster” as he came to be known would leave three roses and a bottle of cognac on the grave before disappearing. This tradition went on for nearly 75 years, but the Poe Toaster was never identified. 

In this same tradition of honoring an American Master of Literature, we’ve gathered together a list of recommendations for all those interested in walking the line between sanity and madness.