The Cask of Amontillado | Author Biography

Edgar Allan Poe's early life was as strange and unhappy as some of his most famous fiction. When he was born in Boston in 1809, his parents were actors in traveling companies; his father died in 1810 and his mother in 1811. Edgar and his sister and brother were left penniless, and Edgar was taken in by a Virginia merchant, John Allan, whose last name Edgar took as his middle name. Poe lived with the Allans in England from 1815 to 1820 and attended school there. His relationship with Allan was strained, because Allan was rather heartless and unsympathetic to his wife and foster son. When Poe began studies at the University of Virginia, the wealthy Allan refused to help support him, and Poe turned to gambling, with little success.

Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

After a short time at the University, Poe moved to Boston and began his career as a writer. In 1827 he published his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems, at his own expense, but found few readers. These early poems were heavily influenced by the Romantic poets. His first paid publication was the short story ‘‘MS. Found in a Bottle’’ (1833), which drew the attention of a publisher who admired his work and who got him an editorial job. He soon lost the job because of his drinking. Shortly afterwards, in 1836, he married his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was thirteen years old.

During the eleven years of his marriage to Virginia, Poe had a series of publishing successes and personal failures. He moved his family to New York and Philadelphia and back again, editing and contributing to various magazines. He published several short horror stories and narrative poems, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue'' (1841), one of the earliest detective stories ever written, the psychological horror story "The Tell-Tale Heart'' (1843), and the melancholy poem ‘‘The Raven’’ (1845), which brought him national fame. His brilliance as a writer was now firmly established. Still, he could not escape his addiction to alcohol.

Virginia Poe, wife of Edgar Allan Poe
Virginia Poe, wife of Edgar Allan Poe

In 1846, after losing a series of editorships, Poe retreated with his wife to a cottage in Fordham, outside New York City, where they nearly starved. There Poe wrote ‘‘The Cask of Amontillado,’’ its gloomy and cynical tone echoing Poe's own feelings. The Poe biographer William Bittner claims that the two characters in the story "are two sides of the same man Edgar Poe as he saw himself while drinking.’’ A few months later Virginia died of tuberculosis, and Poe became despondent. He wrote several important pieces during this time, but though he tried again to give up drinking, he never succeeded. He died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, at the age of forty, after an alcoholic episode.