The Complete Poetical Works Of Edgar Allan Poe: By Edgar Allan Poe - Illustrated - Softcover

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston in 1809, but was orphaned in 1811 and went to live with a foster family in Virginia. The relationship was conflicted, and the Allans withdrew their financial support after Poe had completed only one semester at the University of Virginia. He enlisted in the Army, then enrolled briefly in West Point, meanwhile publishing three volumes of poetry: Tamerlane (1827), Al Aaraaf (1829), and Poems (1831). From 1831 to 1835, he lived in Baltimore with his aunt, where despite his increasing literary success, he began a lifelong struggle with poverty and addiction to alcohol. In May 1836, he married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm, a child of thirteen. In April 1844, he moved his family to New York, and in January of the following year, his literary fortunes turned when his poem “The Raven” appeared in the New York Evening News. Overnight, he became the most talked-about man of letters in America. Early in 1847 his wife died of tuberculosis and he sank further into alcoholism. On October 3, 1849 he was found wandering the streets of Baltimore, delirious, and died four days later from an unknown cause.

AloneFrom childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.