EDGAR ALLAN POE.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

EDGAR POE was born January 19, 1809, in Boston. His father, David Poe, the runaway son of General David Poe of Baltimore, was an actor; his mother was a young actress of English descent. Soon after Edgar's birth his father died, and at his mother's death, about three years later, the boy was adopted into the family of John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond. Mr. Allan seems to have bestowed on his adopted son everything he would have given his own child, although regarding him with pride, perhaps, rather than affection, and Poe's early years were happy ones. He received an excellent education at the Manor House School, in Stoke Newington, during the five years (1815-1820) that the family was in England, and for the next five years at a classical school in Richmond. In 1826 he entered the schools of ancient and modern languages in the University of Virginia, which had just opened its doors, with Thomas Jefferson in the president's chair. There Poe's quick and brilliant scholarship won for him the highest honors in Latin and French; but he was not a diligent student, nor was he enamored of accuracy, and although he seems never to have come under the notice of the faculty in a way to invite censure, he was nevertheless not allowed to return for his second year, but was kept at home by his guardian and put to work in the counting-room.

This work proved unbearable to Poe, and he soon ran

away, as his father had done before him, and went to Boston. There he appears to have lived under an assumed name. His first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published in 1827 under the pseudonym of "A Bostonian," not even the printer knowing the author's real name, and in the same year Poe enlisted in the United States Army as Edgar A. Perry, giving his age as twenty-two.

His military career covers a period of four years, and is not without incident. When he enlisted, he was assigned to the First Artillery, and he served with this command at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor, and later at Fort Moultrie and Fortress Monroe, rising to the rank of sergeant-major. Mr. Allan learned of his whereabouts in 1829, and secured his discharge from the army. In the same year Poe published at Baltimore, under his own name, a second volume of his poems, entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. In 1830 he entered the Military Academy at West Point, where he stayed about six months. Deliberate, prolonged neglect of duty then caused him to be court-martialed and dismissed. Reconciliation with Mr. Allan was this time impossible, and Poe was thrown finally on his own resources.

Immediately after leaving West Point, Poe went to New York, and there published a volume with the simple title Poems, calling it a second edition, although it was really a third. He then settled at Baltimore, where in October, 1833, he won a prize of $100 by his story entitled A MS. found in a Bottle. He began, also, to write for The Southern Literary Messenger, a new periodical published at Richmond, and after a short time he removed to that city and became the Messenger's assistant editor. He was well fitted for editorial work, and his many tales, criticisms, and poems soon made the magazine famous. Much of this work was done under pressure and is of little interest now; a few of the poems strike a new note, and a half dozen of the tales have been preserved in the Tales of the Folio Club.

But his book reviews made the new Southern monthly a magazine of national reputation. They were of a sort not previously known in this country, bold, keen, and effective; they aroused much interest, and they made Poe's name known throughout the land. During this period of prosperity Poe married, on May 16, 1836, his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was then less than fourteen years old.

In January, 1837, however, the prosperity ended. Poe's eccentric nature caused him to leave the Messenger, and he went to New York to live. He stayed in New York one year, publishing his longest story, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and then removed to Philadelphia. During the six years of his residence there he contributed to various magazines and did much editorial work. He published Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque (1840); he edited The Gentleman's Magazine, reprinting his old work sometimes with changed titles and slightly revised text; he tried without success to start a journal of his own; he edited also, for a short time, Graham's Magazine, then a leading literary journal. In 1843 he won another prize of $100 with The Gold-Bug.

Poe's popularity was growing, and it reached its height in 1844, when he returned to New York and formed a connection with The Mirror. In January, 1845, this paper published The Raven, which brought the author instantaneous fame. He became the literary success of the day, and his works were published and sold in new editions. But despite these apparently brilliant prospects, worldly success was as far distant as ever. For a few months Poe was one of the editors of a new weekly, The Broadway Journal, but he broke with his partner, and an attempt to conduct the paper alone resulted in failure. During this year he published a volume of Tales and The Raven and Other Poems.

Early in 1846 Poe removed to the famous cottage at Fordham, New York, and here, on January 30, 1847, his