Edgar Allan Poe Quotes
Born On
1809-01-19Died On
1849-10-07Birth Place
Boston, Massachusetts, United StatesDeath Place
Church Home & Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, United StatesBirth Sign
capricornFather
David Poe, JrMother
Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins PoeSpouse
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe (m. 1836–1847)Nationality
AmericanEducation
United States Military Academy (1830–1831), University of Virginia (1826–1826)Always remembered for his horror and ghastly stories, almost each tale that this exceptional writer has penned is inspired by true-life events. His first tale of horror, ‘Berenice’ speaks of a man who goes to great lengths to extract his dead wife’s teeth, even if it means digging up her grave. As if that isn’t gory enough, the man’s obsession eats into his consciousness and he fails to hear the screams of his wife, who isn’t really dead, but has been wrongly buried alive. Critics suggest that this short story might have been based on a real incident. In 1833, Poe read a news article in the ‘Baltimore Saturday Visiter’ about a couple of thugs who were arrested for stealing the teeth from buried corpses so that they could sell it to denture-makers. In 1835, this genius of a writer got ‘Berenice’ published and admitted to the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, that the story “originated in a bet that I could produce nothing effective on a subject so singular, provided I treated it seriously…”
Similarly, another literary creation by this great writer, ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’, claimed to have solved the otherwise true-life open case of the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers. Though there was no dearth of suspects, the cops were left wanting of sufficient evidence to arrest any of them. As and when the police investigations revealed new clues, Edgar tweaked his story, so that he could give his suggestions on an appropriate method of investigation to find the killer.
