2 8 aad 47a c7c For Ê "The Fall Of The House Of Usher"È, for example, he was paid 10 dollars, and when the story-collection Ê "Tales Of The Grotesque and Arabesque"È was published in 1840 he only received a couple of copies of the book as payment. Virginia died January 1847, and Poe got a nervous breakdown. All he lived for suddenly was washed away. Mrs Clemm nursed him and he recovered, but he never saw any purpose to his life again. In the following years he wrote a few poems and became engaged with his boyhood love Sarah Royster. In September 1849 he went to New York to fetch Mrs Clemm to attend the wedding ceremony. He never came that far... It's uncertain how he spent the following weeks, which was his last in his life, but it's certain that he broke off his journey to New York in Baltimore. No one knows why. Then he disappeared... In the beginning of October, Dr James Snodgrass, an old friend of Poe's, received a letter from a Jos A. Walker from Baltimore. Walker had found Poe on the street, semi-conscious. He was drunk and very ill. Poe was taken to Washington Hospital, where he became delirious for three days. Edgar Allan Poe died at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday 7 October. His last words were: "Lord, help my poor soul !". The legend has it that Poe was a mysterious man, soaked in opium and alcohol, a sick and morbid mind, sexually impotent, sadist and a necrophilic. Although Poe was surrounded by mysteries, some of these was created by Poe himself, he actually liked being mysterious. É THE AUTHOR È Poe was both crime-author and horror-author. His first crime- story, Ê "The Murders In The Rue Morgue"È is probably his most famous one in that style. Not because it sold many copies, but because it was the first story to use the analytic style. Ê "The Murders In The Rue Morgue"È wasn't the first story about solving a crime, but it was the first to use the technic where the detective solved the mystery through analysis of all the facts in the case. Crime-stories before, was solved when the criminal betrayed himself, was betrayed by a witness or confessed after torture of some kind. His horror stories was often about the twilight zone that exists between life and death. In Ê"The Premature Burial"È he tries to convince us that many people are buried alive, which he describes as the most horrifying pain a human being can have. Ê "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"È describes how an old man on his deathbed, reacts to a hypnosis by the I-person in the story. Poe often wrote in I-form which made it hard to figure out if he was writing about himself or just from his imagination, but I guess he would have had quite an existing life if all his books were autobiographies. Í (You're not as stupid as you look ! Ed.)Ë His stories has been a inspiration for many authors and movie-directors. Legends like Sir ÊArthur Conan DoyleÈ (Sherlock Holmes) and Ê Agatha CristieÈ (Poirot and Miss Marple) has claimed that their stories was inspired by Poe's analytic novels. His horror-stories inspired and still inspires people like Ê H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury ÈandÊ Roald Dahl.È Poe has been criticized for being unrealistic and vulgar, but every reviewer agree that he was original and that he developed the foundation on which many authors base there style upon. Edgar Allan Poe had a tragic marriage and an unsuccessful career, but he made history and set the path in criminal literature, which was going to be followed by hundreds of authors. And for that he will always be remembered. Said about Poe: É HE WAS GREAT IN HIS GENIUS UNHAPPY IN HIS LIFE WRETCHED IN HIS DEATH BUT IN HIS FAME HE IS IMMORTAL È Next author-portrait: Ê Arthur Conan Doyle È É (Flip page for Poe-bibliography) ÿ