The Masque of the Red Death | Edgar Allan Poe Biography

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. The son of minor stage actors, Poe was orphaned at any early age, as his father abandoned him and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was still a very young child. He was then adopted by John Allan and Francis Allan, but Mrs. Allan, Poe's beloved foster mother, died of tuberculosis in 1829, when he was still a teenager. Although John never legally adopted him, Poe added the Allan surname to his own.

Edgar Allen Poe
Edgar Allen Poe

Poe spent his early adult life in and out of the army, engaging in an ongoing struggle over money with his foster father, and developing the notorious habits of alcoholism and debt. In 1835, at the age of twenty-six, he married his young cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was only thirteen. The exact nature of their relationship is unknown, although it is generally said that his treatment of her was more that of a father than of a husband. Virginia, however, died of tuberculosis in 1847, the third significant woman in his life to have died of the same disease.

Although a controversial figure during his lifetime, Poe's literary contribution to nineteenth and early twentieth century literature has been invaluable. His long poem, ‘‘The Raven,’’ launched him into instant national, and eventually, international, success. The poem is perhaps the most famous and widely read of his works. His literary influence, however, derives largely from his numerous innovations in the art of the short story. Poe raised the short story to the status of an art form, solidifying a principle of short-story writing still in practice today: that the short story must be about one central idea or event, and one only.

He is considered to have single-handedly invented the modern detective story, of which the Sherlock Holmes stories are a direct descendent. Furthermore, Poe mastered the art of Gothic fiction in his tales of the macabre; his stories can best be characterized as "dark," focusing on death and taking place primarily at night. In this way, Poe developed the short story into a genre of fairy tales for adults, touching on the mystical and supernatural in stories which reach into the darkest corners of human psychology. Posthumously, Poe's work was also extremely influential on French and Russian literature.

One night in the fall of 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found lying unconscious on a street in Baltimore. He was taken to a hospital, where he remained in a semi-coma for three days, after which he died. Although a life of heavy drinking certainly did not contribute to Poe's health, it is thought that his death was directly due to a brain lesion, complicated by other long-term illnesses. Obituaries appearing immediately after his death painted Poe's character in a rather unflattering light, a posthumous reputation that proved hard to remedy.

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