Poe, Edgar Allan

Ms., 1809-1849. A poet and romancer who is pronounced by some critics the foremost of American poets so far as melody and technique are concerned. He was born in Boston, his parents being actors then playing in that city, and, left an orphan at an early age, was adopted and educated by Mr. Allan, a Virginia merchant. At nineteen he published his first volume, Tamer lane, and Other Poems. He led a wandering, di ipated life, editing at various times Graham’s Magazine, The Southern Literary Me enger, and other periodicals, and died of delirium tremens in Baltimore. He criticized the work of his contemporaries with severity, yet in the main with justice, but in so doing raised up a host of literary enemies. Among his prose tales, The Gold Bug; The Fall of the House of Usher; Ligeia, are especially characteristic of his genius, while such poems as The Bells, The Raven, Annabel Lee, display wonderful melody and perfect mastery of metre. Beside Tamer lane, his writings include, The Conchologist’s First Book; Eureka, a Prose Poem; The Raven, and Other Poems; Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque; The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. The best edition of Poe is that edited by E. C. Stedman and G. E. Wood berry, in ten volumes (1895). See Lives by Stoddard, Didier, Ingram, Wood berry; Fortnightly Review, July, 1880; Poe and his Critics by Mrs. Whitman; Stedman’s Poets of America. Co. Cr. Har. Kt. Lip. Mac. Sto.