Random Bizarre Facts About the Tragic Life of Edgar Allan Poe (16 items)

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  (#7) Poe Married His 13-Year-Old First Cousin When He Was 27

  When Poe got kicked out of West Point, he moved to Baltimore and into the home of Maria Clemm, his aunt and sister of his deceased father, David Poe. This household consisted of Poe, his aunt Maria, his aunt's mother, Elizabeth, and his aunt's young children, Henry and Virginia. While the family was almost as destitute as Poe, they did have Elizabeth's pension from the state of Maryland to keep a roof over the extended family's head. 

  Despite the difficult circumstances, Maria was quite supportive of Poe's literary career and referred to him as "Eddy." Poe also became fond of Virginia, but the exact nature of the relationship is still a matter of historical dispute. In August 1835, Poe left Baltimore for Richmond and a job with the Southern Literary Messenger. He promised that he would send for Maria and Virginia (Elizabeth and Henry had both died by 1835) as soon as financially possible.

  Poe's employment prompted the Clemms' move to Richmond, and on May 16, 1836, Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old first cousin. The debate over how normal this relationship was has ranged from it being consummated at the age of sixteen to the assertion that Virginia Clemm died a virgin.           
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  (#16) Poe Experienced Intermittent Depression, But Likely Did Not Kill Himself

  In a 2020 study conducted at Lancaster University, researchers utilizing a computerized language analysis took samples of Poe’s personal and professional writings to see whether a linguistic pattern consistent with suicidal thoughts and depression was present. Dr. Ryan Boyd, a psychologist at the university, hypothesized that Poe had experienced a spiral of depression towards the end of his life, but that he did not take his own life at the end of the day. Boyd’s theory checked out.

  Researchers stated, “[the] analyses suggest that he struggled deeply with success, with linguistic markers of depression peaking during the times of his greatest fame and popularity in 1843, 1845 and 1849”. Without a consistent pattern of depressive episodes over Poe’s life, the circumstances of his passing remain a mystery.
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  (#13) His Literary Executor Deliberately Destroyed Poe's Legacy

  The shocking news that Edgar Allan Poe had died prompted a then-prominent critic to attempt to avenge a long-standing grudge. Rufus Griswold wrote a prominent, anonymous obituary in a major New York newspaper that began: "Word of Poe’s death will startle many, but few will be grieved by it." It only got worse from there. He skewered Poe as a man who wandered the streets either in "madness or melancholy" mumbling and cursing to himself because of intoxication and also a cad who conducted all sorts of scandalous liaisons, even while married. 

  As a critic, Poe had scathingly ridiculed Griswold and his successful poetry anthologies, but they also had periods of professional accord and Griswold even lent Poe money at one point. Clearly, Griswold never forgot the critical slights and went even further by convincing Maria Clemm that he should be Poe's executor and literary agent and got her to assign him this role legally. He edited collections of Poe's posthumous works and included a "Memoir of the Author" that depicted Poe as a dissolute drunk, drug addict, and mentally unstable madman. He pocketed any royalties and gave nothing to Maria Clemm or Rosalie Poe who legally should have been in control of Poe's literary estate.

  Griswold's efforts actually fueled the public's interest in Poe as they became fascinated with the works of such a notorious writer. Even so, Poe's historical image suffered terribly from Griswold's characterization and still has not recovered today. 
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  (#4) 'Tamerlane' Is Now The Holy Grail Of Rare American Books

  Edgar Allan Poe's first attempt at literary success was Tamerlane and Other Poems a self-published pamphlet he released in 1827. Again, to retain his anonymity in Boston, he assumed the pseudonym "A Bostonian." The publisher, Calvin Thomas, typically printed handbills and apothecary labels. Tamerlane and Other Poems received no formal distribution, was not formally reviewed, and quickly disappeared. Even Poe's initial literary executor, Rufus Griswold, publicly doubted that the book even existed until a copy was found in the British Museum in 1876. 

  Of the approximately fifty copies originally printed, only twelve are known to exist today. Francis Wahlgren, a rare books specialist, told The Baltimore Sun it could be considered "the Holy Grail of 19th-century American literature." Christie's auctioned off a copy in 2009 for $662,500, breaking the previous record for the American literature genre by over $400,000. The previous record holder? Another copy of Tamerlane.
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  (#11) Poe Proposed To Two Different Women In The Last Year Of His Life

  Once Poe's wife died, Poe seems to have become determined to lift himself out of poverty by marrying into wealth or at least respectability. After exchanging letters and poetry for months with a widowed writer and poet named Sarah Helen Whitman, in September 1848, Poe abruptly showed up at her Providence, RI, home, declared his eternal love and forcefully proposed an immediate marriage. He returned to the Bronx where he received her letter of rejection but he journeyed to Providence again in October, reiterating his proposal. He then left for Lowell, MA, and the home of the family of Annie Richmond, another love interest who also happen to be married. 

  Poe would return to Sarah Whitman's home several times in November and December, actually getting her to agree to a Christmas Day wedding. The hostility of Sarah's mother, who legally placed the family estate out of any potential reach of Edgar, and Poe's drinking, despite a vow of abstinence, ultimately scuttled the relationship. Unbeknownst to Whitman, Poe was also romancing another woman, Sarah Royster Shelton, an old flame from Poe's childhood. In Richmond in 1848, attempting to raise money for a journal he would edit, Poe showed up at Shelton's house unannounced, the two having not seen each other since they were teenagers.  

  Poe spent much of the first half of 1849 in Virginia on lecture tours and attempted fundraising for his proposed journal and romancing Shelton, again proposing marriage continuously. Despite Sarah's children's objection and her deceased husband's will calling for a three-quarter forfeit of his estate in the event of remarriage, Sarah told Edgar she'd think it over while, in September 1849, he went to New York. She found out about Poe's October 7, 1849, death by reading about it in the newspaper.
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  (#10) Poe Lived With His Mother-In-Law Even After His Wife's Death

  Because of mediocre performances during numerous paid lectures, attacks on powerful establishment figures like Emerson and Longfellow, and a scandal involving a married woman, in May 1846, Poe, his wife Virginia, and his wife's mother, Maria, relocated to virtual literary exile by moving to a rural cottage in the Bronx, fourteen miles from central New York City. Whatever momentum he generated with "The Raven" was now gone and his wife was already seriously ill with tuberculosis. 

  Virginia Clemm Poe died on January 30, 1847, aged 24. On her deathbed, she got her mother to promise that she would look after "Eddy," a promise that Maria kept for the rest of Poe's life.

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