2 8 aad 47a c7c ÊÌ EDGAR ALLAN POEÉË ----------------------------------- Èby ÊTOMMYÈ The history of criminal-literature started on the 1. of April 1841. That day Edgar Allan Poe released Ê"The Murders In The Rue Morgue"È. The story is about how the amateur-detective Auguste Dupin, through logical analysis, solves a puzzling crime and reveals the murderer. With this story Poe made the technic of crime-stories and became father of a style that are used by Agatha Cristie and Arthur Conan Doyle. We in ÊR.A.W.È gives you the story about a man, called both alcoholic and drug-addict, but also a man of pure genius.... É THE MAN È Edgar Poe was born 19. January 1809 in Boston, USA. His parents were both actors, his mother died when Poe was two years old, and his father either left or died the previous year. After his mothers death, Edgar was brought up by his Godfather, Ê John AllanÈ, a Scottish tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Í (And that's how he got his middle-name, smartarses ! Ed.)Ë Although his parents died when he was young, Edgar had a happy childhood. He was very fond of Mrs Allan and they gave Poe a good education. In his early teenagers though, his relationship with John Allan worsened. Poe had dis- covered that Allan was unfaithful to his wife, and Poe never forgave him for that. Their relationship worsened even more when Poe, after entering The University of Virginia, was kept short of money. This resulted in Poe running into debt, and he had to leave the university, although his record had been excellent. After this Poe ran away to Boston, and unable to find work, he joined the army. In the army he changed his name to "Edgar Perry" and released some poems. In 1830 he, just before entering West Point, he met his aunt Mrs. Maria Clemm and his cousin,Ê Virginia ClemmÈ - the girl he was to marry. One year later he was discharged from West Point, the theory is that he grew tired of the army and deliberate neglected his duties so that he would be expelled. Short after, he moved in with his aunt and began writing stories. From 1832 to 1833 he released 6 stories, but they were all sold for little or nothing. Poe, poor and unable to make a living as a writer, became editor in "Southern Literary Messenger". He was given the job, when one of his stories, Ê "M.S. Found In A Bottle" Èwon a prize in a magazine competition. To take up his editorship, he had to move back to Richmond. Both of his foster-parents were now dead and he wrote to Clemm and asked them to come and live with him. Edgar and Virginia were married around spring 1836. He was 27 and they lied about her age and said that she was 21,Ê in reality she was only 13 !È They were both in deep love with each other, and Poe grew a close relationship with his mother-in-law Mrs. Clemm. In the following years he wrote his most famous stories. Five of them where analytic detective-novels: Ê "The Murders In The Rue Morgue" "Thou Art The Man" "The Mystery Of Marie Roget" "The Purloined Letter" "The Gold Bug" The rest were horror-stories. È In 1842 Virginia showed the first signs of tuberculosis, and Poe had to nurse her in his spare time. This resulted in Poe losing his job as literary editor of "Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine" and he had to start as a freelance writer. His own poverty and his wife's inexorable illness made him turn to alcohol and sometimes also opium, but he never became an alcoholic or a drug-addict - he was too poor. April 1844, he moved with his family to New York, where he became editor and later owner of a weekly magazine called: "Broadway Journal". The magazine was undercapitalized though, and it collapsed, publishing it's last issue in the beginning of 1846. By 1845, when the poem Ê"The Raven" Èwas published, he had written enough to have become a very well-known author. Many of his stories, particularly Ê "The Gold Bug"È had become popular. But he never became famous and neither did he become rich as a writer or as an editor. É(Flip page) ÿ