The Tell-Tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe
(1850)
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were — I have
not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passions from a common
spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow — I could not
awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d — I lov’d
alone –
Then — in my childhood — in the dawn
Of a most stormy life –
was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me
still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the
mountain –
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold
–
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by –
From the
thunder, and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest
of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view —
Biography of Edgar Allan Poe
This is a short biography. Unlike many biographies that just seem to
go on and on, I’ve tried to compose one short enough to read in a single
sitting.
Poe’s Childhood
Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. That makes him
Capricorn, on the cusp of Aquarius. His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe.
David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S.
from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805.
They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie.
Elizabeth Poe died in
1811, when Edgar was 2 years old. She had separated from her husband and had
taken her three kids with her. Henry went to live with his grandparents while
Edgar was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan and Rosalie was taken in by another
family. John Allan was a successful merchant, so Edgar grew up in good
surroundings and went to good schools.
When Poe was 6, he went to school
in England for 5 years. He learned Latin and French, as well as math and
history. He later returned to school in America and continued his studies. Edgar
Allan went to the University of Virginia in 1826. He was 17. Even though John
Allan had plenty of money, he only gave Edgar about a third of what he needed.
Although Edgar had done well in Latin and French, he started to drink heavily
and quickly became in debt. He had to quit school less than a year
later.
Poe in the Army
Edgar Allan had no money, no job skills, and had been shunned by
John Allan. Edgar went to Boston and joined the U.S. Army in 1827. He was 18. He
did reasonably well in the Army and attained the rank of sergeant major. In
1829, Mrs. Allan died and John Allan tried to be friendly towards Edgar and
signed Edgar’s application to West Point.
While waiting to enter West
Point, Edgar lived with his grandmother and his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. Also living
there was his brother, Henry, and young cousin, Virginia. In 1830, Edgar Allan
entered West Point as a cadet. He didn’t stay long because John Allan refused to
send him any money. It is thought that Edgar purposely broke the rules and
ignored his duties so he would be dismissed.
A Struggling Writer
In 1831, Edgar Allan Poe went to New York City where he had some of
his poetry published. He submitted stories to a number of magazines and they
were all rejected. Poe had no friends, no job, and was in financial trouble. He
sent a letter to John Allan begging for help but none came. John Allan died in
1834 and did not mention Edgar in his will.
In 1835, Edgar finally got a
job as an editor of a newspaper because of a contest he won with his story, “The Manuscript Found
in a Bottle“. Edgar missed Mrs. Clemm and Virginia and brought them to
Richmond to live with him. In 1836, Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. He was
27 and she was 13. Many sources say Virginia was 14, but this is incorrect.
Virginia Clemm was born on August 22, 1822. They were married before her 14th
birthday, in May of 1836. In case you didn’t figure it out already, Virginia was
Virgo.
As the editor for the Southern Literary Messenger, Poe
successfully managed the paper and increased its circulation from 500 to 3500
copies. Despite this, Poe left the paper in early 1836, complaining of the poor
salary. In 1837, Edgar went to New York. He wrote “The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pym” but he could not find any financial success. He moved to
Philadelphia in 1838 where he wrote “Ligeia” and “The Haunted
Palace“. His first volume of short stories, “Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque” was published in 1839. Poe received the copyright and 20 copies of
the book, but no money.
Sometime in 1840, Edgar Poe joined George R.
Graham as an editor for Graham’s Magazine. During the two years that Poe
worked for Graham’s, he published his first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue
Morgue” and challenged readers to send in crytograms, which he always
solved. During the time Poe was editor, the circulation of the magazine rose
from 5000 to 35,000 copies. Poe left Graham’s in 1842 because he wanted to start
his own magazine.
Poe found himself without a regular job once again. He
tried to start a magazine called The Stylus and failed. In 1843, he
published some booklets containing a few of his short stories but they didn’t
sell well enough. He won a hundred dollars for his story, “The Gold Bug” and
sold a few other stories to magazines but he barely had enough money to support
his family. Often, Mrs. Clemm had to contribute financially. In 1844, Poe moved
back to New York. Even though “The Gold Bug” had a
circulation of around 300,000 copies, he could barely make a living.
In
1845, Edgar Poe became an editor at The Broadway Journal. A year later,
the Journal ran out of money and Poe was out of a job again. He and his family
moved to a small cottage near what is now East 192nd Street. Virginia’s health
was fading away and Edgar was deeply distressed by it. Virginia died in 1847, 10
days after Edgar’s birthday. After losing his wife, Poe collapsed from stress
but gradually returned to health later that year.
Final Days
In June of 1849, Poe left New York and went to Philadelphia, where
he visited his friend John Sartain. Poe left Philadelphia in July and came to
Richmond. He stayed at the Swan Tavern Hotel but joined “The Sons of Temperance”
in an effort to stop drinking. He renewed a boyhood romance with Sarah Royster
Shelton and planned to marry her in October.
On September 27, Poe left
Richmond for New York. He went to Philadelphia and stayed with a friend named
James P. Moss. On September 30, he meant to go to New York but supposedly took
the wrong train to Baltimore. On October 3, Poe was found at Gunner’s Hall, a
public house at 44 East Lombard Street, and was taken to the hospital. He lapsed
in and out of consciousness but was never able to explain exactly what happened
to him. Edgar Allan Poe died in the hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849.
