Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer who was born in the early 1800s. Orphaned by the age of three, he spent his youth with Mr. and Mrs. John Allan. He was separated from his older brother and younger sister, who went to live with other families. This part of his life ignites a theme of loss and abandonment in his text. Mr. Poe's dreams and desires were ignored as Mr. Allan encouraged him to become a businessman and Virginia gentleman. By the age of thirteen, young Edgar had written enough poetry to publish a book, but his request was denied by his headmaster who advised against it.
He was left to fend for himself at University of Virginia in 1826 with less then a third of sufficient funds. This forced his hand at gambling, which hindered him more than he was to begin with, so bad that he eventually had to burn his furniture to keep warm. This instills a sense of poverty and neglect which intensify the feeling of abandonment. He was so humiliated by his poverty that he returned home to his fiancée, who he later discover had become engaged to another in his absence. He was so heartbroken and fed up with Mr. Allan's poor treatment that he stormed out of the Allan mansion and enlisted in the US Army after publishing Tamerlane, his first book of poetry, at the age of eighteen. Shortly after, Edgar found out that his adoptive mother, Mrs. Allan, was dying of tuberculosis and wanted to see him before she died. Mr. Poe returned to see his mother, except she was covered by six feet of dirt and garnishment. The mutual grief felt by both Mr. Allan and Mr. Poe helped their relationship mend before Poe was appointed to the US Military Academy at West Point (after writing another work, of course). During his time at the academy, he heard that Mr. Allan remarried and didnt bother inviting nor informing Edgar of the ceremony. At this point, Poe was so outdone by Allan that he wrote a detailed letter describing how he was wronged by Mr. Allan throughout his life. After writing yet another book, Poe was thrown out of the Academy. By now, you'd think that Edgar Allan Poe was and early Bad Luck Brian. That he was. And his story continues with many women that came and went tragically, adding more pain to his roladex. His story finishes with an untimely death, at the age of forty. In this period, Poe has written multiple short stories, volumes of poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. Some consider him to be the father of modern mystery and suspense.
His stories are not completely made up, but his reflections of his life.
