Author Spotlight: Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe has added far more to the literary landscape than he is credited. That is my opinion, of course; but, if you look at his accomplishments in the 40 short years of his life, it is truly amazing.

A bit of a tragic childhood, Poe was no stranger to losing people he loved. However, he was well-educated and showed talent in both writing and art early on. “Tamerlane and Other Poems” is his first published work. The short collection of poems was first published in 1827. Heavily inspired by Lord Byron, there were 50 copies printed, and Poe’s name was not attributed to them in any way, signed instead “By a Bostonian”. This first published collection is so rare that after Poe’s death, the editor and critic (and nemesis of Poe) Rufus Wilmot Griswold believed it had never existed until one was found in 1859. It has since been recognized as one of the rarest first editions in American literature. Today, it is believed only 12 copies of the collection still exist.

There is a shrine to Poe, The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond. It boasts a piece of Poe’s original coffin, a lock of Poe’s hair, and a recreation of his boyhood bedroom with his original bed. But I am most interested in the “Raven Room”. It has blood-red walls, and contains an exhibit of illustrations by James Carling. Carling entered a contest to illustrate the poem, which was eventually won by famed Gustave Dore. He sought to illustrate the poem line-by-line,
and the effect of his art is more chilling than the classic rendition
by Dore.Currently, 10 illustrations are exhibited at a time,
ensuring a limit to the damage and light, air and the environment in general wreak on paper.

Another fun fact about Poe that you may not read in a common biography is that he loved cats. He had a tortoiseshell cat named Catterina that kept him company as he wrote, and is said to have slept on his wife’s chest as she slept, providing warmth. If you have read the short story, “The Black Cat”, you will be heartened to know that Poe was never seen to be anything other than affectionate with his pets. 

And remember the name Rufus Griswold from earlier? The two were at odds from the beginning of their relationship. Griswold was a failed preacher-cum-editor, and saw himself as both morally and socially superior to Poe. On his part, Poe looked at Griswold as an uneducated man with a penchant for scalding rhetoric. To top this off, there was also a woman for whom both men shared affections. It’s practically a Lifetime movie!! 

It seems that Poe’s aunt/mother-in-law (those were the days of this kind of thing, readers) made an agreement with Griswold to receive the rights to publish a posthumous collection of Poe’s works. The more he published, the more he manipulated the text, going so far as to forge letters from Poe, trying to secure the least favorable remembrance possible. Griswold wrote such a scathing and libelous obituary that he signed it using a pseudonym. You may read it in its entirety here. Basically, Griswold was the worst of the worse, and some even speculate that he may have been mentally ill. 

In the end, though, no one remembers Griswold or his work. He did nothing to elevate literature. Edgar Allan Poe, on the other hand, became better studied, understood, and memorialized each year. I truly wish he would have seen some of this adulation and monetary notice during his lifetime.