258 



TOY. 



New York, 1831, 124 pages, and contained Itrafel, 

 his earliest poem of value, and To Helen, in a first 

 iraft. 



Of hU life in Baltimore during the next two years 

 few records remain. Here occurred his earliest love- 

 affair, which came to nothing (see 'Poe'u Mary' in 

 Harper's Magazine for March 1889). Nearly the first 

 earnings of his pen was the 3100 prize won fiv A .1/X. 

 found in a Bottle, in < 'ctober 1833. He declined an 

 invitation to dinner 'for reasons of the most humili- 

 ating nature my personal appearance. ' John P. 

 Kennedy befriendea him, and even, by the testi- 

 mony of both, saved him from starvation. From 

 this time he lived with his aunt, Mrs Clemm, and 

 wrote for the Saturday Visitor. Not long before 

 .Mr A 1 Inn's death in March 1834 Poe made an 

 attempt to see his foster-father, who drove him 

 from the room ; this incident, like many others in 

 his life, has lieen exaggerated. His connection 

 with the Southern Literary Messenger began with 

 its publication of his tale Berenin- in March 1835; 

 a few months later he went to Richmond as its 

 assistant-editor. The Clemms soon joined him, 

 and on May 16, 1836, he married his cousin Vir- 

 ginia, who was then not fourteen, though a friend 

 swore that she was 'of the full age of twenty -one.' 

 For more than a year he worked hard and usefully 

 in the Messenger, which printed many of his tales. 

 criticisms, and poems, gaining great repute there- 

 by. But Poe was ' irregular, eccentric, and queru- 

 lous,' and these qualities, with the aid of stimu- 

 lants, cost him more than one place. He left 

 Richmond in 1837, and after a year or less in New 

 York, of which the chief apparent fruit was The 

 Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pyin (1838 ; 198 pages), 

 in the summer of 1838 established himself lit he 

 could In- said at any time to be established) in 

 Philadelphia. 



Here he prepared The Conchologist's First Book 

 (1839), the matter of which was taken from 

 Cuvier, Wyatt, and Brown; procured at length 

 the publication, without profit to himself, of Tales 

 of the Grotesque and Arabesque (2 vols. 1840) ; was 

 connected with Burton's Gentleman's Magazine 

 (1839) ; projected in 1840 the Penn Magazine, whirh 

 came to nothing, and in 1843 '/'/(' Stylus, which 

 he never gave up the hope of starting ; and for a 

 year (1842-43) edited liruhain'x Mni/nziiir, then in 

 the forefront of American literature. Long periods 

 of sobriety and patient though ill-requited labour 

 would be interspersed with fits of reckless indul- 

 gence and month- of desiicrate poverty. His wife's 

 dangerous illness, caused by tin- rupture of a blood- 

 vessel while singing, unnerved him. and weakened 

 his always slight power of self-direction. A second 

 prize of $H"i, won in IS4.'i by his wonderful story 

 A.- linltl /tin/, again saved the little household 

 from starvation or near it. 



Ill April 1844 he removed to New York, and 

 from October to March following assisted Willis on 

 '/'/! Evening Mirror. Here Tic /.v/r./i appeared, 

 January 29, 1845, and won immediate fame. For 

 u few months he was associated with < '. I . l.iL';.'- 

 in the hroadtoay Journal, which became notorious 

 by his assaults on Ix>ngfellow as a plagiarist. In 

 this year he published a volume of Tales, and The 

 &MWI antdouur /'//!.. In the spring of 1840 he 

 occupied the famous cottage at Fordham. 1 1 

 January .'to, 1S47, in deepest poverty, Virginia Poe 

 died, an attractive and pathetic figure, retaining 

 he; fragile and ehildi-h beauty to the last; she was 

 but twenty four. Her mother was more than a 

 mother to the ]>>'! . ami his home life drew out 

 what was best in his nature, and afforded such 

 measure as he attained of happiness. 



Kxcept for The Hells, The Domain of Arnhtim, 

 the wild p-yi-ho astronomic 'prose poem l-'.nnl.ii 

 (IH4KI, and a few minor pieces, the brief remainder 



of his life might to advantage be forgotten. l"n- 

 able to stand alone, he sought vainly, and with an 

 eagerness that MRMttbea insanity, to replace 

 what he had lost. He was no libertine; his writ 

 ings and his life were chaste ; with women he was. 

 deferential, tender, chivalrous. He idealised them 

 on the smallest provocation, and in these latter 

 years he could not keep his imaginings in their 

 proper place. Mrs Whitman was not the only 

 object of his homnge, and his frantic appeal- to 

 her, strangely intermingled with bar-room pota 

 tions and an attempt at suicide (November 1H48), 

 were but the most striking and pitiable indications 

 of a mind unhinged. Two months later he was 

 deep in pen-work, and wrote to his 'Annie' that 

 he was 'so, so happy,' with 'how great a burden 

 taken off his heart. In the spring Mrs Clemm 

 wrote to the same 'Annie,' 'I thought he would 

 die several times. I wish we were both in our 

 graves.' 



Starting southward, June 30, he ha. I an attack 

 of delirium tremens in Philadelphia, lie.-. ivciing, 

 his ticket was furnished by friends who considered 

 it unsafe to trust him with money. He spent over 

 two months in Richmond, lecturing there and 

 at Norfolk, and receiving many attention-. A 

 physician warned him that 'another such indul- 

 gence would probably prove fatal.' He became 

 engaged to a lady of means, and about September 

 30 left Richmond, intending to wind up his affaire 

 in the north and return for his wedding in Octolier. 

 On the 3d of October he was found in a wretched 

 condition at a voting-place in Baltimore and 

 removed to a hospital, where, after expressing the 

 most poignant remorse, he died, October 7. 1849. 



Poe s character has been the subject of much 

 heated controversy. It was malignantly vilified 

 by R. W. Griswold, whom he had chosen as his 

 biographer and literary executor, in Mmmir pre- 

 fixed to vol. iii. of his collected works (1850), hut 

 since suppressed. KH'orts to rehabilitate his memory 

 have been equally far from the truth. After ail 

 allowance made tor the infirmities of a sensitive 

 spirit, bearing an inherited taint and bowed down 

 by ' unmerciful disaster,' the fact remains that he 

 was the main author of his misfortunes. His 

 splendid intellect seemed to lack certain qualities 

 bestowed on common men ; his moral vision was 

 never clear, his sympathies were narrow, his will 

 was far weaker than a man's should be. His tern 

 perament was feminine, and the ' Imp of the 

 Perverse" was always at his heels. At forty he 

 was no better nor worse than at seventeen, except 

 that his constitution was undermined by excesses. 

 Always he was isolated, absorbed, self-centred, 

 visionary, hopelessly unpractical. He wrote to 

 Lowell in ls||. 'My life has been whim, impulse, 

 pa--ion. a longing for solitude, a scorn of all things 

 present.' The kindly liriggs, after months of daily 

 intimacy, called him 'characterless' and 'utterly 

 deficient of high motive.' It is hnmiliatin 

 know that his brilliant writings found with ditli- 

 ciilty a slow market and poor juices, but more no 



that he perpetually sold ami ie-old old things for 

 new. He \\a- mine diliger 

 ends than in seeking the 



was mole diligent in defeating his own 

 in seeking them, in making enemies 

 than in keeping friends. F.\ccjit Willis, he 

 quarrelled with his employers and associates; men 

 tru-ted or benefited him to turn from him in the 

 end, and usually with speed. The din-si necessity 

 could teach him prudence only by tits and t-taii--: 

 he was not responsible, reliable, respectable at 

 least, never for two years together. He worshipped 

 Beauty, caring little for her el. lei sister Truth ; liom 

 youth hefiil-ilie.l the facts and date- of his own life, 

 so that his history became a pu/./.le to be soheil by 

 slow and painful falxmrs. Profoundly unmoral, mm- 

 bid and hectic in his moods, he could l>eai neither 



