Edgar Allen Poe: The Story Within
By: Sanaa El Chami
Edgar Allen Poe: Death and Birth
Childhood and Family
His Education
Poe soon realized that West Point wasn't for him. He decided to get himself kicked out of school, which he successfully accomplished by refusing to attend chapel or classes. He was court-martial-ed and dismissed. "The army does not suit a poor man — so I left West Point abruptly," he later wrote, "and threw myself upon literature as a resource. I became first known to the literary world thus." Poe published several anonymous short stories plus another book of poems. Almost immediately after he left West Point, his brother Henry died of Tuberculosis.
Important Life Events
2. Poe takes a job as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger magazine. He publishes critical reviews of other writers' work as well as his own stories and poems.
3. Poe—now 27 years old—marries his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm at a ceremony in Richmond, Virginia.
4. Poe begins as an editor at Graham's Magazine, where he works until May 1842. The magazine runs Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the first-ever entry in a genre now known as the detective story.
5. While singing at the piano, Virginia begins to bleed from her mouth, a symptom of untreated tuberculosis. Her illness grows progressively worse.
6. Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx. Poe has been so despondent during the final months of her illness that friends thought he was going insane. The loss of his wife sends Poe into a downward spiral of alcoholism.
Contributes to Change
Intresting Facts
1. Edgar was very obsessed with cats. So, when he wrote a poem, he always had a cat on his shoulder or lap to help him write.
2. When he made the name The Raven, for his book, he almost did The Parrot, but thought it didn't fit the book.
3. When he entered the army, his name was actually different. He went as Edgar Allen Perry.