Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography

"It’s an older biography, but it’s the best. Most recent biographies overemphasize the gothic elements in Poe’s life, making him out to be a version of his obsessive characters. That’s an injustice. Poe certainly could be melancholic, and he had a terrible problem with drinking. But he was also a very canny, extremely hardworking writer. There were very few American writers in Poe’s time who could support themselves through literature alone, partly because there were no international copyright agreements, and publishers could pirate Dickens, etc., for free. So Melville became a customs agent. Hawthorne became a diplomat. But Poe hustled and hustled, working as an editor, an exacting critic, and writer for his entire life. At a time when literary criticism was mostly puffery—praising writers who could help your career—Poe actually offered sophisticated insights into American writing. Quinn details Poe’s professional and personal life in a way that makes him real. For a long time, Poe had bad luck in his biographers. His first biographer was his literary executor, Rufus Griswold. But Griswold hated Poe. He wrote a biography full of lies and exaggerations. For a long time, those lies served as the conventional wisdom about Poe. Quinn details the difference between what Griswold alleged and what the records show in very revealing ways. Well, he married his cousin Virginia when she was 13. It wasn’t as aberrant then, but it was still unusual and remarked on. They seem to have been very happy together until she contracted tuberculosis – one of the reasons the disease is so common in his writing. For years, she would oscillate between near-death sickness and apparent health. That oscillation tortured Poe, who couldn’t help but imagine that she was recovering, even as he carried the lurking knowledge of the truth. I’d also mention Poe’s strange relationship with alcohol. He wouldn’t drink for long periods, but when he did, it completely disrupted his life. He got in fights, lost friendships, was fired from jobs. And then the fit would pass, and he’d be left picking up the pieces."