Edgar Allen Poe

1 Pages 319 Words

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and lived in six Eastern cities. Edgar went to the University of Virginia. The student life of the University was more social than academic. The young men drank too much, gambled too much, fought for the sheer enjoyment of violence, and rampaged over the campus at all hours. This was the worst possible environment for young Poe with his emotionally unstable temperament. He was unusually susceptible to alcohol; one mild drink sent him into a state of wild excitement. He gambled recklessly, incurring debts he could not begin to pay. He went to Boston, where he managed to publish a collection of his poems in pamphlet form, Tamerlane and Other Poems. Desperate for money, he joined the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. In 1833 The Saturday Visitor of Baltimore announced a literary contest with prizes of fifty dollars for the best short story, and twenty-five dollars for the best poem. Poe submitted a gr!
oup of stories. One of the stories, MS. Found in a Bottle, won the story prize, and his poem would have won the poetry prize except that the judges decided not to award both prizes to the same contestant. John P. Kennedy, took an interest in Poe and befriended him by helping him sell a story to the new Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond. Poe joined the editorial staff of the magazine and soon became its editor. He has many problems with drinking and therefore his job was on and off. Soon after moving to New York, his poem, The Raven, was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was reprinted in a number of magazines, and at once became extremely popular. The Raven is not by any means Poe's best poem. The best of his poetry is pure magic....