EDGAR ALLAN POE
American author (1809-1849)
Biography:
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809. He lost his parents at a very young age and that's why all his work is marked by the idea of death. He was ten when Frances Allan, a rich Scottish merchant's wife, fostered him. He studied in London from 1816 to 1825. When he came back to Richemond, he wrote his first lines for Helen, a friend's mother with whom he was in love. In 1826 he began attending University of Virginia but he left his studies the following year. He published Tamerlan and other Poems in 1827, represnting the Mongol Emperor as an outlaw. The following year he joins the army and he is sent to Sullivan Isalnd, where he writes The Gold Bug (1843). Thanks to Mr. Allan he gets a job in West Point and writes many poems.
Poe goes to live with his aunt Maria Clemm in Baltimore, and there he marries young Virginia Clemm. In New York he write The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, his only long novel, inspired by Conrad and Verne. In 1839 he publishes his first volume of tales called Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque and he foundes his own newspaper, Pen. Although he eran quite a lot of money, his alcoholism drove him to poverty. He died in Baltimore in 1849.
Edgar Allan Poe's bibliography:
Poe's bibliography is very extensive. Just to name some of his most famous long tales, there are The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) and The Narrative of Arthut Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1850).
Among his short-stories, Berenice (1835), Ligeia (1838), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart (1843), The Purloined Letter (1845), The cask of Amontillado (1846) and The Oval Portrait (1850).
His most famous poem is The Raven, published with other poems in 1845.
Critical analysis on Edgar Allan Poe:
"Poe, visionnary of the Irreal", documentary film of Manfred Uhlig, Germany, 1999.