Edgar Allan Poe's name is practically synonymous with the macabre. His poem, The Raven, is a classic of the horror genre. And his story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which predates the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes by almost 50 years, essentially invented the trope of the analytical detective. In spite of this creative success, the circumstances of Poe's life were often bizarre and tragic. He was a textbook example of a starving artist who lived for his art, drank heavily, and died young. Today, we're going to take a look at some bizarre facts about the tragic life of Edgar Allan Poe. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. And be sure to let us know in the comments below what historic writers you would like to hear more about. OK. So once upon a midnight dreary. [MUSIC PLAYING] Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. At the time, his parents, David and Eliza Poe, were stage actors. And their profession required them to be constantly touring up and down America's east coast. It was a relatively transient lifestyle that wasn't terribly well suited to raising a family. So in the summer of that year, the family, which included Edgar's older brother Henry, moved to New York City. This new arrangement didn't last long. Six weeks after the move, Poe's father, who was an alcoholic, abandoned his family. Forced to support the kids on her own, Eliza moved them all to Richmond, Virginia where she hoped to find work in the theater. In December of 1810, she gave birth to a daughter, Rosalie. But sadly, mother and child wouldn't have much time together. Eliza contracted tuberculosis and died on December 8, 1811. By an eerie coincidence, approximately three days later in Norfolk, Virginia, Poe's father also passed away. Edgar was only 2. With no parents left to assume custody, the Poe children were split up. Henry was sent to Baltimore to live with her grandparents, while Edgar and Rosalie were each adopted by different families in Richmond. While many believe that Allan is Poe's middle name, that's not really the case. Allan is actually the surname of John and Francis Allan, the couple that adopted Edgar in Richmond. John Allan was a relatively successful merchant who didn't have much in the way of a formal education. He did, however, have a great deal of personal wealth, which he acquired the old fashioned way. He inherited it. Despite this, he considered himself a self-made man. Whatever the case, John didn't have much of a relationship with his ward. He felt Edgar was ungrateful for everything the Allans had done for him. And he believed the boy didn't have even a spark of affection for him. By the time Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia, his relationship with his adoptive parents had become outright hostile. John refused to provide Edgar with the money he needed to make it through the semester. Quickly running out of funds, Edgar tried to make up the difference by gambling. You can probably guess how well that went. Long story short, Poe wound up thousands of dollars in debt. It all caught up with him when his creditors finally approached John Allan himself for payment. Allan refused to pay and instead pulled Edgar, then only in his second semester, out of the college. John demanded that Edgar take a job for no pay at his trading firm. But Edgar wasn't having it. Instead, he left home and headed to Boston to follow his dream of becoming a poet. However, in what would become a trademark of many of the endeavors of his life, his plan was both underdeveloped and underfunded. [MUSIC PLAYING] At the age of 18, he spent most of his money self-publishing a pamphlet of poetry called Temerlane and Other Stories. While the few remaining copies of this pamphlet are priceless today, it was not successful at the time. In fact, it sold so poorly that there was a time that historians didn't believe it actually existed. With no practical skills or marketable education to fall back on, Poe quickly ran out of options. Finally, in May of 1827, out of pure desperation, he enlisted in the Army. To prevent his creditors from finding him, he enrolled under the alias, Edgar A. Perry. Edgar A. Perry turned out to be a pretty good soldier. His reputation was for being reliable, competent, and adept at bureaucratic recordkeeping. As such, he quickly rose to the rank of Sergeant Major. In his time with the Army, Poe served at three separate places, including Fort Moultrie, South Carolina. This location would later serve as the setting for the work that launched Poe's career, a short story called, The Gold Bug. Poe found some success in the Army. But with three years still left on his five-year commitment, he grew bored. He asked his commanding officer for permission to attend the US military academy at West Point. But the officer refused to sign off on the request unless Poe reconciled with adoptive father John Allan. Allan, at first, refused. However, after the death of Francis Allan in 1829, John changed his mind and grudgingly helped Poe get into West Point. Edgar's time at West Point officially began on July 1, 1830 and ended with a court martial eight months later on February 8, 1831. While an urban legend holds that Poe was kicked out for attending a class in the nude, the truth is less amusing. The young cadet had grown unhappy at the school and deliberately attempted to get expelled. Officially, he was convicted of dereliction of duty. [MUSIC PLAYING] Leaving the Army to attend West Point required finding someone to serve out the rest of Poe's enlistment. That someone turned out to be Sergeant Samuel Graves who agreed to finish the commitment for a fee, which Poe agreed to pay. However, when it came time to settle up, Poe didn't have the money. In a letter to Graves, Edgar suggested he would try to get the funds from John Allan but that it would take some time because Allan was a notorious drunk. Running out of patience, Graves talked to John Allan himself and showed him the letter. Enraged, Allan paid the debt and then refused to speak to Edgar again for the rest of his life. Even on his death bed, Allan refused to meet with Poe and threatened to beat him with a cane if he didn't leave. [MUSIC PLAYING] After West Point, Poe headed to Baltimore where he moved in with his aunt, Maria Clemm, who was the sister of Edgar's deceased father, David. Also living in the house was Maria's mother, Elizabeth, and Maria's children, Henry and Virginia. The family struggled financially but did manage to keep a roof over their heads thanks to a pension Elizabeth received from the government. Maria, for her part, was very supportive of Poe's literary dreams. In 1835, Elizabeth and Henry both died. And Poe left Baltimore for a job at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. A year later, when he was financially able, he sent for Maria and Virginia who left Baltimore. On May 16, 1836, Edgar Allan Poe married 13-year-old Virginia, his first cousin. The exact nature of their relationship and whether this marriage was ever consummated is unknown and has been widely debated by historians for generations. [MUSIC PLAYING] Like his father, Poe was an alcoholic. And he was notorious for his binge drinking during his short time at college. The problem was so severe that TH White, the editor who hired Poe at the Southern Literary Messenger, had to quickly fire him for drinking so much. White, who recognized Poe's talent when sober, eventually agreed to rehire him in October of 1836. His employment was contingent on Poe maintaining sobriety. He was gone by January of 1837. In 1839, a friend of Poe named Thomas English Dunn spotted the writer drinking in the streets of New York. He described Poe as struggling in a vain attempt to raise himself from the gutter. When the men ran into each other again three days later, Dunn said Poe was hardly ashamed and told him that it would never happen again. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the case. Poe's drinking would become more and more severe over the course of his life and likely played a role in his mysterious death. In January of 1845, Edgar Allan Poe published a narrative poem called The Raven. The story was about a man despondent over a lost love being confronted by a mysterious and possibly imaginary creature. While Poe had already developed a solid reputation as a literary critic, he only had moderate success as a fiction writer. The Raven changed all that. It was wildly successful. And it made Poe famous throughout the world. The poem was widely reprinted and led to the publication of two separate volumes of Poe's poetry and prose. He was invited to the most exclusive clubs New York high society had to offer. And children would follow him through the streets chanting, never more! However, you can't pay rent with fame. Records show Poe made somewhere between $9 and $15 for writing the poem. Newly published editions earned him another $120 in royalties. But since he had taken a $135 advance, he never got any of it. The next year was hard. Poe gave mediocre performances on the paid lecture circuit, made unpopular attacks on establishment figures like Emerson and Longfellow, and was caught up in a scandal involving a married woman. The career momentum he had built on The Raven petered out. In May of 1846, Poe, his wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria, moved to a rural cottage in the Bronx. Located 14 miles outside of central Manhattan, it was the equivalent of living in literary exile. Even worse was that Virginia had come down with tuberculosis. She died January 30, 1847. On her death bed, Virginia made her mother promise to look after Eddie for the rest of his life. Maria would keep that promise. [MUSIC PLAYING] After Virginia's death, Poe became determined to marry his way out of poverty. He spent months exchanging letters with a widowed poet named Sarah Helen Whitman. And then in September of 1848, he showed up at her house unannounced to propose marriage. She declined. And Poe returned home only to try again a month later. After that, he headed to Lowell, Massachusetts to see another potential love interest named Annie Richmond. However, she was already married. He tried with Sarah Whitman again in November and December. And he eventually got her to agree to a Christmas day wedding. However, Sarah's mother was wary of Poe's drinking. And she made legal arrangements to ensure he would never get a share in the family's estate. Perhaps as a result, the relationship ended before the wedding. Lucky for Sarah too. She didn't know it. But at the time, Poe was also putting the moves on an entirely different Sarah. Sarah Royster Shelton was one of Edgar's childhood sweethearts. Poe proposed to her as well. And despite a clause in her husband's will requiring her to forfeit 3/4 of his estate if she remarried, she told him she would think about it. She never reached a decision. On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died. Sarah found out about his passing when she read about it in a newspaper. [MUSIC PLAYING] On September 27, 1849, Poe boarded a steam boat bound for New York City. Though he had sworn to his prospective fiancé, Sarah Royster Shelton, that he wouldn't drink, it is believed that he broke this vow when the ship stopped in Baltimore on September 28. Many of the facts have been lost to history. However, we know that, on October 3, a man named Joseph Walker sent a letter to an acquaintance of Poe named Joseph Snodgrass. The letter reported that Poe had been found in a Baltimore gutter incoherent and in need of help. Snodgrass located Poe and immediately checked him into a hospital. The writer remained incoherent and was never able to explain what happened to him. Four days later, Poe died. His cause of death remains unknown and has been subject to rampant speculation ranging from a case of rabies to an attack by the brothers of a woman he was courting. Some might say it's ironic, but fitting, that the inventor of the modern detective story should leave behind such a tantalizing mystery with his own bizarre life and death. So which of these facts surprised you about Poe? And what is your favorite Poe story? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.