Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849

In personal appearance, Poe was a quiet, shy-looking but handsome man; he was slightly built, and was five feet, eight inches in height. His mouth was considered beautiful. His eyes, with long dark lashes, were hazel-gray. Edgar Poe was born in 1809 in Boston. It was in Richmond that Poe grew up, married, and first gained a national literary reputation. Many of the places in Richmond associated with Poe have been lost, but several still remain.

Family

Father: David Poe, an actor

Mother: Elizabeth Poe, an actress

Foster parents: John Allan, Tobacco merchant and his wife,

Frances Allan, cared for Poe while he was young, but never legally adopted him.

Wife: Poe married his cousin Virginia Clemm

Occupations

* Soldier

* Editor and literary critic

* Author

Chronology

Edgar Poe is the second of the three children of David Poe and Elizabeth (Arnold) Poe, both of whom were professional actors and members of a touring theatrical company. Mr. Placide's Theatre Company in Boston employed Poe's natural parents, David and Elizabeth Arnold Poe. They had been married in Richmond while on tour in 1806. Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, but he considered Richmond his home, and called himself "a Virginian," where his mother had been employed as an actress. David Poe, unknown due to his more famous wife, his own promising career ruined by alcoholism, Edgar's father, deserted the family when Edgar was still an infant; nothing conclusive is known of his life thereafter. While appearing professionally in Richmond, Virginia, Poe's mother became ill and died on December 8, 1811, in Richmond at the age of twenty-four.

Poe's mother, Elizabeth, was buried in the churchyard of St. John's Episcopal Church where her memorial stone may be seen. St. John's is the oldest church in Richmond and is famous as the site of Patrick Henry's rousing "liberty or death" oration shortly before the Revolutionary War. The Richmond Theatre where Edgar Poe's mother had performed burned to the ground on December 26, 1811, only eighteen days after her death. The fire took the lives of many Richmonders including the Governor of Virginia, George Smith and his wife. At the site of the tragedy on East Broad Street, Monumental Episcopal Church was erected as a memorial to the victims.

Her three children, who would maintain contact with one another throughout their lives, were sent to live with different foster families. Richmond families took in the other two children who were Rosalie, only eleven months old, by William and Jane Scott Mackenzie. Edgar, not quite three, was taken into the family of tobacco-merchants. John Allan was a member of the firm of Ellis and Allan. John Allan, and his wife Frances, had no children of their own.. At this time, Allan and his wife were living in quarters located above the firm's offices at Thirteenth and East Main Streets. The following year Edgar was baptized at the Monumental Episcopal Church on January 7, 1812 by the Reverend John Buchanan, with John and Frances Allan as his godparents. Francis and Edgar regularly attended services and maintained pew number 80 in the church. John Allan, raised as a Scotch Presbyterian, may have visited from time to time, if only for maintaining business contacts in the community.

In 1815, business reasons led Allan to move to England for a five-year stay. While in London and back in Richmond after the family's return, Poe was well educated in private academies. John Allan bought the house, Moldavia, in 1825, and Edgar lived there before entering the University of Virginia in 1826. In 1825 at the age of sixteen, Poe became secretly engaged Elmira Royster. The Royster family lived just across the street with their daughter Elmira from Edgar. The engagement, opposed by both families, was eventually broken off. Although Edgar was never formally adopted by the Allans, Poe regarded them, especially Mrs. Allan, as parents. Poe took their surname as his own middle name. All of the Allan homes where Poe grew up have now disappeared; however, a photograph of, his last home in Richmond, does exist.

After returning to Richmond, young Poe registered at the University of Virginia on February 14, 1826. He distinguished himself as a student, but he started drinking. Poe accumulated gambling debts of $2,000, which John Allan, refused to honor. He lived in Room 13, West Range. He became an active member of the Jefferson Literary Society. By December Poe had passed all of his course with good grades, but due to the debts, Mr. Allan did not approve of and refused to give him enough money for necessary expenses.

After Mr. Allan refused to let him return to the University, Poe left Richmond in March 1827 and sailed north to Boston. In Boston is where he published his first book, and a pamphlet called Tamerlane and Other Poems. Even today this is such a rare book a single copy has sold for $200,000.00. The poems reflect his difficulty with his Richmond family, which must have been composed while he was still in Virginia.

While in Boston, Poe enlisted in The United States Army on May 26, 1827 as a private using an assumed name Edgar A. Perry. Poe claimed to be 22 years old, but was actually eighteen. Poe spent two years of service, which he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major, a highest noncommissioned rank, he secured, with Mr. Allan's aid, he was honorably discharge from the Army and went on to Baltimore. He desire an appointment to West Point in the hope of becoming a career commissioned officer.

While living in Baltimore, Poe published a second book of poetry in 1829: Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, which attracted little more attention than its previous book. He lived with his aunt, Mrs. Maria Poe Clemm, his father's sister, on the small amounts of money sent by Mr. Allan until he received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Frances Allan died in February 1829. John Allan, helped Poe to enter West Point in May of 1830. Mr. Allan remarried in October 1830 and refused to have anything else to do with Poe.

Poe found the only method of release from the Academy, and was dismissed on March 6, 1831 by being chafed under the regimen: