Edgar Allan Poe Death Anniversary

 

Edgar Allan Poe, born on 19 January 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, lived a life filled with tragedy. Poe was an American writer, considered part of the Romantic Movement, in the subgenre of Dark Romanticism. He Became an accomplished poet, short story writer, editor, and literary critic, and gained worldwide fame for his dark, macabre tales of horror, practically inventing the genre of Gothic Literature.

Poe was one of the earliest American writers to focus on the short story and is credited with inventing the detective fiction genre. But it is for his horror stories that he is world famous today, great short stories that are widely known, including; The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Purloined Letter are among his most popular short stories.

Poe published his work, an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827. Poe changed his focus to prose, and after many years of writing periodicals and journals he became known for his own style of literary criticism. All the while Poe moved around between Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City.

Edgar Allan Poe’s epic poem The Raven, was published when he was in Baltimore in 1845, and became an instant success. Poe planned to produce his own journal, The Stylus, but he died in 1849 of unknown causes at the young age of 40, before he could make that project a reality.

Poe had many imitators, and after his death clairvoyants often claimed to “receive” Poe’s spirit and “channel” his poems and stories in attempts to cash-in on his fame and talent. The attempts to cash in on his fame was rather ironic considering Poe died penniless. His work also influenced science fiction, namely Jules Verne, who wrote a sequel to Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery.

Considered the quintessential American Gothic writer, Poe’s epic story, The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) reveals the tragedy of Rodrick Usher, who suffers from a variety of mental health disorders not even invented or named by modern psychology when Poe wrote about them: hyperethesia (sensory overload), hypochondria, and acute anxiety. It’s a stellar tale sure to disturb and delight the reader.