Portal:Edgar Allan Poe
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  Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, literary critic, and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. Poe's legacy includes a significant influence in literature in the United States and around the world as well as in specialized fields like cosmology and cryptography. Additionally, Poe and his works appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, television, video games, etc. Some of his homes are dedicated as museums today.  Thomas Holley Chivers (October 18, 1807 – December 18, 1858) was an American poet from Georgia. He is today best known for his friendship with Edgar Allan Poe and his controversial defense of the poet after his death. Born into a wealthy Georgia family, Chivers became interested in poetry at a young age. After he and his first wife separated, he received a medical degree from Transylvania University but focused his energy on publishing rather than medicine. Edgar Allan Poe showed an interest in the young poet and encouraged his work. Chivers spent the last few years of his life defending the reputation of Poe, who had died in 1849, though he also thought Poe had been heavily influenced by his own poetry. He claimed in particular that "The Raven" and "Ulalume" were directly taken from his own work. Chivers died in Georgia in 1858. As a literary critic, Chivers believed in divine inspiration. He encouraged the development of a distinct American style of literature and especially promoted young writers. His poems were known for religious overtones and an emphasis on death and reunions with lost loves in the afterlife. Though he built up a mild reputation in his day, he was soon forgotten after his death.  Title page for Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), a collection of short stories by Poe. William Henry Leonard Poe (January 30, 1807 – August 1, 1831) was a poet and the older brother of Edgar Allan Poe and Rosalie Poe. After the death of their parents, the three Poe children were split up: Henry lived with family in Baltimore, Maryland, while Edgar and Rosalie were cared for by two different families in Richmond, Virginia. Before the age of 20, Henry traveled around the globe by sea before returning to Baltimore and becoming a published poet and author. One such published work was a fictionalized account of his brother's young romance with Sarah Elmira Royster. He died of tuberculosis in 1831 but was an inspiration to his brother's life and writings. Edgar Allan Poe was very close to his brother, as he wrote: "there can be no tie more strong than that of brother for brother - it is not so much that they love one another as that they both love the same parent." Edgar occasionally used the alias "Henri Le Rennet", a French version of his older brother's name. He was also inspired by his brother Henry's travels, often incorporating some of his stories from overseas into tellings of his own life story. The character of August Barnard in Edgar's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1836) seems to be inspired by Henry, especially in his travels across the sea and his drinking. Poe may have also transformed his brother's name into the title character in his poem "Lenore". 
 Did you know ...that, in addition to horror fiction, Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay on interior decorating called "The Philosophy of Furniture"? First published in 1840, the essay is the basis for a recreated room at the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia. Did you know ...that noted Poe biographer Kenneth Silverman won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Cotton Mather? The Life and Times of Cotton Mather was published in 1984, seven years before Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance.
June 18 – In Boston, Frances Sargent Osgood is born in 1811. Osgood would later have a very public flirtation with Poe through letters and poems, though Poe’s wife Virginia was still alive. June 21 – The first half of "The Gold-Bug" is published in Philadelphia's Dollar Newspaper in 1843. One of Poe's "tales of ratiocination," the newspaper awarded it a $100 prize for a writing contest. June 22 - John and Frances Allan along with Poe and Frances's younger sister Anne (Nancy) Moore Valentine board the Lothair to move to England in 1815. June 27 – Sarah Helen Whitman dies in Providence in 1878. Whitman had become engaged to Poe late in his life, after he vowed to avoid alcohol, though the wedding never took place. Poe’s poem "To Helen" is dedicated to her. June 29 – Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies in Florence, Italy on this day in 1861. Browning, a popular poet in England, praised "The Raven" after is publication. Poe responded by dedicating his 1845 collection The Raven and Other Poems to her. In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, "meliora probant, deteriora "sequuntur — the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are "poor "decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are "all "curtains — a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous. ...from "The Philosophy of Furniture" (May 1840)
Poe Topics: Edgar Allan Poe Other People: Hervey Allen • Anne Lynch Botta • Charles Frederick Briggs • Nathan C. Brooks • William Evans Burton • George William Childs • Thomas Holley Chivers Select Poe-Related Media: American Review: A Whig Journal • Baltimore Saturday Visiter • "The Black Cat (Masters of Horror episode)" • Broadway Journal • Burton's Gentleman's Magazine • Closed on Account of Rabies • Danza macabra • The Death of Poe (film) • An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe • Godey's Lady's Book • Graham's Magazine • The Grave Digger • House of Usher (film) • The Last Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe: The Troy Dossier • The Man with a Cloak • Maniac (1934 film) • Murders in the Rue Morgue (film) • New York Mirror • The Oblong Box • The Pit and the Pendulum (1961 film) Other Stuff: Edgar Allan Poe Cottage • Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum • Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond) • Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site • The Imp of the Perverse • Westminster Hall and Burying Ground Works: Eureka: A Prose Poem |
