Poe's True Following

by Jeanne Matthews
Author of the Dinah Pelerin Mysteries

Everyone who leaves a comment this weekend will be entered in a drawing for a free copy of Jeanne's new book, HER BOYFRIEND'S BONES.

Edgar Allan Poe invented the mystery genre before the word “detective” was coined.  His brainy sleuth Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and everyone who writes detective fiction today owes a debt to Poe’s creative genius. The writers who blog as “Poe’s Deadly Daughters” pay homage to his legacy on a daily basis.

I hadn’t thought consciously about the man for years until I tuned in to an episode of the TV show, “The Following.” 
 
The plot involves an English lit professor who is obsessed with Poe. As a “tribute” to his hero, he has murdered dozens of women. Captured and sent to prison, he escaped and launched a cult of copycat serial killers. Call me cozy, but psychotic serial killers aren’t my cup of tea. Personal taste aside, I still think “The Following” exploits the element of horror in Poe’s work while ignoring the craft and complexity. It’s true that whenever a woman appears in one of his stories or poems, she tends to be dead. Reading his biography, it’s not hard to see why. Poe experienced a lot of bad luck in his life – persistent poverty, melancholy, alcoholism, and more than a few scathing reviews of both his work and his character. But when it came to the ladies, he was positively snakebit.

His mother Eliza, an itinerant actress, died of consumption at the age of 24 and his father, who had deserted Eliza and their three children, died a few weeks later. Two-year-old Edgar was taken in and raised by the Allan family, but the love of a foster mother couldn’t compensate for the loss of his birth mother. He spent his entire life searching for a substitute. 

At the age of twelve, he attached himself to Jane Stanard, the beautiful mother of a school friend, but she soon went mad and died. His childhood sweetheart Elmira Royster comforted him for a time, but while he was away at school she married another man. Resilient to a fault, he transferred his affections to his cousin Virginia. He married her when he was 27 and she was 13, although he maintained publicly that she was much older.
 
He idolized little Virginia, but it wasn’t long before “a wind blew out of a cloud” and chilled his young bride, as recounted in the poem “Annabelle Lee.”  While Virginia lay dying of tuberculosis, Poe drowned his sorrow in drink. His spirits rebounded miraculously when he met the “ardent, sensitive, and impulsive” Fanny Osgood.  The two conducted a clandestine love affair until Fanny, too, felt a chill and betook herself to a warmer clime for her health’s sake. With Fanny gone and Virginia coughing her life away, poor lonely Edgar again sought solace, this time in the arms of an author named Elizabeth Ellet. Things were looking up in the romance department until Fanny got wind of the affair and in a jealous snit, tipped Virginia to her husband’s infidelity. If Virginia was saddened by the news, she didn’t suffer for long.  She died at the age of 20.

 Poe continued to write, but his stories didn’t earn enough to keep his creditors at bay.  “Murders in the Rue Morgue” fetched all of $56.  “The Purloined Letter” paid $12 and “The Tell-Tale Heart” $10.  His gambling debts mounted and his drinking grew heavier. He despaired of finding a woman who wouldn’t abandon him, but then along came Sarah Helen Whitman, a writer and poet who awoke in him “an ecstatic happiness and wild, inexplicable sentiment.”  More importantly, this one appeared physically sturdy and mentally sound, not the type to sink into madness or succumb to a chill wind. Unfortunately, her mother didn’t cotton to Poe and Sarah decided that his drinking habit was more than she could handle. She very sensibly declined his offer of marriage.  

Heartbroken once more, he found consolation in the sympathetic company of Mrs. Annie Richmond.  He wrote to her, “My love for you has given me new life.” But Annie had no intention of leaving her wealthy husband for a poverty-stricken drunk and Edgar’s hopes of a lasting relationship were dashed. At the end of his romantic rope, he learned that Elmira Royster’s husband had died and, hope renewed, he hastened back to her and proposed. But Elmira couldn’t put up with his drinking either and sent him packing. 

The most interesting writers aren’t always the most agreeable people. Sad to say, Poe doesn’t sound as if he would have made a very pleasant companion for any woman. It would no doubt astound him to realize how thoroughly his influence has permeated the culture and how many deadly daughters and sons his pioneering stories have spawned.

Everyone who leaves a comment this weekend will be entered in a drawing for a free copy of Jeanne's new book, HER BOYFRIEND'S BONES. 
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Jeanne Matthews is the author of the Dinah Pelerin international mysteries published by Poisoned Pen Press, including Bones of Contention, Bet Your Bones, and Bonereapers.  The newest release, Her Boyfriend’s Bones, is set in Greece on the Aegean island of Samos.  For more information about Jeanne’s books, visit her website.