John Allan died in 1834 and moreover Poe received no inheritance. Poe then turned to journalism and began to write for the Richmond based Southern Literary Messenger. By the end of the year, Poe, who had moved to Richmond with Virginia and Mrs. Clemm, was named editor in chief. In May of 1836 he secretly married Virginia, his first cousin, who was then not quite fourteen years of age (Poe Chronology). In 1837 Poe resigned from the Southern Literary Messenger and moved his family to New York then to Philadelphia where he began to write for Gentlemen Magazine in 1839. He once again had problems with his publisher so he sought an editorial position at Graham’s Magazine. Poe once again was seeking a higher salary and was dismissed by the publisher, but this time on better terms (Introduction).
During all of Poe’s editorial positions he forwarded his own career and in 1843 he began to publish his own works one of which including The Tell-Tale Heart. He began to also gain fame but could not profit off of his works because of the unfavorable copyright laws. In 1845 Poe published his most famous poem The Raven which was extremely successful (Introduction). He also became the sole owner of The Broadway Journal by October of 1945, but the magazine was already having financial difficulties and on January 3, 1846 the magazine quit publication. He then moved his family to Fordham, New York where Virginia died of tuberculosis. Poe was engaged to Sarah Helen Whitman but she broke it off because of Poe’s drinking. Poe then went to Richmond to find financial assistance for a magazine, the Stylus, he was going to write and while there he became engaged to Elmira Royster Shelton. On September 27, 1849 Poe returned to Baltimore (Poe Chronology). Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore’s Washington College Hospital on October 7, 1849. On the morning of October 9th Elmira Royster Shelton, a childhood girlfriend of Poe’s and at the current time fiancé, picked up the Richmond Daily Whig and read the following startling column.
“DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE. – We regret to learn that Edgar A. Poe, Esq., the distinguished American poet, scholar and critic, died in this city yesterday morning, after an illness of four or five days. This announcement, coming so sudden and unexpected, will cause poignant regret among all who admire genius, and have sympathy for the frailties too often attending it. Mr. Poe, we believe, was a native of this State, though reared by a foster-father at Richmond VA., where he lately spent some time on a visit. He was in the 38th year of his age.” (Walsh 34)
This brief paragraph had been reprinted from the previous day’s Baltimore Sun. After being taken to the hospital, he was unable to say what happened to him, where he had been all that time, or who he had been with. After another few days of quiet and raving delirium, Poe died. The initial cause of death was “inflammation of the brain” or “congestion of the brain” which was caused by alcohol (Walsh 34-35). Most experts seem to agree that Poe’s overuse of alcohol probably lead to his death but his death still remains a true mystery, which is only appropriate for the father of the modern detective story (Walsh 23).
The very first short stories emerged during the period between the Civil War in America and the Great War in Europe in 1914. These stories were first published in magazines and newspapers for entertainment purposes. They were formless at first, “overloaded with mawkishness”, but then became a new genre of literature (Pattee). In America the evolution of the short story came in stages but began with the eighteenth-century tale of the Hannah More type of story then flourished into stories that would satisfy American for half a century (Pattee). After the new genre emerged, the work of Washington Irving was some of the most well know of the time. His first publication was Salmagundi, then came his first serious work, The Sketch Book. Irvin was not necessarily a short story writer but helped the short story advance by his influence on other authors of the time. His works were like sketchy moral essays, they lacked drama, and he overloaded them with descriptions found mostly in essays instead of entertaining short stories (Pattee). Nathaniel Hawthorne then came forth in the literary world and added soul to short stories. He centered his stories on a single situation and instead of elaborating on the plot he closed in on the characters and their roles in the stories. Hawthorne was the first author to help the short story become what is it today (Pattee).
In the 1940 Poe began to shape the laws of writing short stories, and treated it as a distinct form of art. This was in a time in which science was sweeping the nation and the mind of every man was focused on fictional events. Poe was not the inventory of the short story, rather he was the first to feel the demand of his age for fictional literature. Poe demonstrated great leadership, unknowingly to the literary world with his short stories. He helped get short stories off to a start in a new and growing society (Pattee).
In Poe’s lifetime he wrote four different types of short stories. He wrote Arabesque stories, these were strange with supernatural characteristics of humans, such as in “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Grotesque stories, such has “The Man Who Was Used Up”, in which the story is entertaining by intensifying one aspect of a character. The third type of short story was Ratiocinative. This is a detective fiction story such as “The Purloined Letter”. The final type is the Descriptive story such as “The Landscape Garden” (Reuben).
He did not take these short stories seriously because they were stories written for money. As mentioned previously, Poe worked for many different magazines as a columnist, storywriter, and editor. In Graham’s Magazine, Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” was featured. This story was the first modern detective story. Later, in 1843, Poe won a one hundred-dollar prize from the Dollar Newspaper for his tale of pirate treasure, “The Gold-Bug” (Poe Chronology). Poe’s horror stories, or Arabesque stories, are the most famous and the most read. Poe's horror stories are different from other authors of his time. These stories do not create suspense and do not frighten the reader but give the reader a chill. He shows the pain of both the victim and the torturer as in "The Cask of Amontillado" to make the story very captivating (Introduction).
Edgar Allan Poe obviously had a life that was often times lacking happiness. It was a life filled with misfortune and ugliness. Even though he we through trails and tribulations he was able to write numerous sorties. Poe's use of symbolism, imagery, irony, the terror inflicted on his characters, and his characters mental illnesses are all ways he connects with his readers. Poe's haunting descriptions and similarities between his life and his works draws the reader into a state of pity and sorrow while at the same times leaving them with a feeling of satisfaction.
Works Cited
“Edgar Allan Poe.” Introduction to poetry Online Chapter 14- Biography. 9 April 2003. <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/kennedy2_awl/chapter14/objectives/deluxe-content.html>.
“Poe Chronology.” Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. 9 April 2003. <http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poechron.htm>.
Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century - Edgar Allan Poe." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. 12 April 2003 <http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/poe.html>
Walsh, John Evangelist. Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998
Pattee, Fred Lewis, A.M., Litt.D. “VI. The Short Story.” Bartleby.com. 15 April 2003. <http://www.bartleby.com/226/index.html>
