She and her mother later immigrated to America upon her father’s demise. [10] Poe's older brother William Henry Leonard Poe, who had been living with the family,[9] had recently died on August 1, 1831. Their absence played a huge role in his writing. All rights reserved. Edgar Allan Poe's wife, Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, died of tuberculosis in New York City on January 30, 1847, at the age of 24. [42] Virginia was aware of the friendship and might even have encouraged it. Young Poe was sent to live in Richmond, Virginia, with a tobacco merchant named John Allan and his wife, who gave him the formal name Edgar Allen Poe. Love shall heal my weakened lungs; The wedding was conducted in a quiet ceremony due to the debate generated on the couple’s blood relationship and age. [79], Only one image of Virginia is known to exist, for which the painter had to take her corpse as model. [7] Elizabeth received this pension on behalf of her late husband, "General" David Poe, a former quartermaster in Maryland who had loaned money to the state. After her death, her body was eventually placed under the same memorial marker as her husband's in Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland. He was 3 years old when his mother died of tuberculosis. She went on to create friction between Virginia and her husband by sending her anonymous letters about her husband. However, she remained devoted to her husband and did not doubt his love for her. In a letter to a friend, Poe described his resulting mental state: "Each time I felt all the agonies of her death—and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly & clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. He was one of the first American writers who wrote detective fiction and something close to science fiction. "[36] Poe once wrote to a friend, "I see no one among the living as beautiful as my little wife. His mom died of tuberculosis and same with his wife but his foster mom died of brain problems. [49] The easiest way out of the predicament, he said, "was a retraction of unfounded charges". [48] Ellet contacted Osgood and suggested she should beware of her indiscretions and asked Poe to return her letters,[47] motivated either by jealousy or by a desire to cause scandal. [82] Virginia's remains were finally buried with her husband's on January 19, 1885[83]—the seventy-sixth anniversary of her husband's birth and nearly ten years after his current monument was erected. For so we are led to believe, from frequent notices in the papers, stating that Poe and his wife are both down upon a bed of misery, death, and disease, with not a ducat in the world. [75] Virginia also showed Poe a letter from Louisa Patterson, second wife of Poe's foster-father John Allan, which she had kept for years[77] and which suggested that Patterson had purposely caused the break between Allan and Poe. [47] In Poe's version, he said, "I gave E. a flogging which he will remember to the day of his death." Edith Wharton: Biography and Major Novels, Poe's A Dream Within a Dream: Summary, Theme & Analysis, Edgar Allan Poe: Biography, Works, and Style, Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe: Summary, Theme & Analysis, The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe: Summary & Analysis, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven: Summary and Analysis, Thanatopsis By William Cullen Bryant: Summary & Analysis, Song of Myself by Walt Whitman: Summary, Themes & Analysis, A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns: Summary & Analysis, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poem Analysis, The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe: Summary & Analysis, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Themes and Analysis, The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill: Summary & Analysis, Introduction to Humanities: Certificate Program, Introduction to Humanities: Help and Review, Introduction to World Religions: Help and Review, History of Major World Religions Study Guide, DSST Introduction to World Religions: Study Guide & Test Prep, MTTC Social Studies (Elementary) (105): Practice & Study Guide, Introduction to World Religions: Certificate Program, UExcel Introduction to Music: Study Guide & Test Prep, Introduction to Music: Certificate Program, College English Literature: Help and Review, Public Speaking Syllabus Resource & Lesson Plans, Biological and Biomedical Poe later claimed he was triumphant in the fight, though English claimed otherwise, and Poe's face was badly cut by one of English's rings. There was a considerable age difference, however. Lenore was the name of the narrator's dead wife in "The Raven." He found more success as a critic — Biography tells us he earned the nickname "The Tomahawk Man" for his scathing critiques. [23] This marriage bond was filed in Richmond and included an affidavit from Thomas W. Cleland confirming the bride's alleged age. Edgar Allan Poe 2A's in allan not allen by the way. place of death: Fordham, Bronx, New York City, See the events in life of Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe in Chronological Order. On February 1, The New York Daily Tribune and the Herald carried the simple obituary: "On Saturday, the 30th ult., of pulmonary consumption, in the 25th year of her age, VIRGINIA ELIZA, wife of EDGAR A. People died very suddenly from all sorts of strange diseases that would never be a problem today, and many many people were dying of tuberculosis. An early Poe biographer, William Gill, gathered the bones and stored them in a box he hid under his bed. How did Annabel Lee feel about the speaker in the... What figurative language is used in A Dream Within... Why did Edgar Allan Poe write Annabel Lee? When she was seven years old her cousin, Edgar Poe came to live with them for a while after his discharge from the Army. "The Poe-Griswold Controversy", Raising the Wind; or, French Editions of the Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Exhumations and Reburials of Edgar and Virginia Poe and Mrs. Clemm, The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virginia_Eliza_Clemm_Poe&oldid=983941243, Burials at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 17 October 2020, at 05:18. So he wasn't alone in that experience of death, but he somehow, I think, was able to latch onto the tragedy of it and evoke that in ways that other writers didn't necessarily. [67], Virginia was described as having dark hair and violet eyes, with skin so pale it was called "pure white",[68] causing a "bad complexion that spoiled her looks". They loved each other in a very special way and supported each other. The couple were first cousins and publicly married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. [86] Shortly after Virginia's death, Poe courted several other women, including Nancy Richmond of Lowell, Massachusetts, Sarah Helen Whitman of Providence, Rhode Island, and childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster in Richmond. Her condition kept fluctuating which brought deep depression in her husband’s behavior. She knew that she would die soon but she wanted to remain by her husband’s side. "[62] She promised her husband that after her death she would be his guardian angel. Many of Poe's works are interpreted autobiographically, with much of his work believed to reflect Virginia's long struggle with tuberculosis and her eventual death. [61] By early 1846, family friend Elizabeth Oakes Smith said that Virginia admitted, "I know I shall die soon; I know I can't get well; but I want to be as happy as possible, and make Edgar happy. edgar allan poe was married to his thirtenn yr. old cousin, Virgina. We are sorry to mention the fact that they are so far reduced as to be barely able to obtain the necessaries of life. [69] Another visitor in Fordham wrote, "Mrs. Poe looked very young; she had large black eyes, and a pearly whiteness of complexion, which was a perfect pallor. The death of Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, has remained mysterious. [44], At the same time, another poet, Elizabeth F. Ellet, became enamored of Poe and jealous of Osgood. starTop subjects are Literature, Social Sciences, and Science. He went on to mixed success as a writer, both as a journalist and in fiction. This I can & do endure as becomes a man—it was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope & despair which I could not longer have endured without the total loss of reason". This story, which shows a man mourning his young wife while transporting her corpse by boat, seems to suggest Poe's feelings about Virginia's impending death. A week before his death, his doctor advised him not to travel. Sarah Pruitt Despite his macabre literary genius, Edgar Allan Poe’s life was short and largely unhappy. [34] Friends of Poe suggested that the couple did not share a bed for at least the first two years of their marriage but that, from the time she turned 16, they had a "normal" married life until the onset of her illness.[35]. [20] Encouraged by his employment at the Southern Literary Messenger, Poe offered to provide financially for Maria, Virginia and Henry if they moved to Richmond. Throughout his life, Edgar Allan Poe lost the women he loved, including his mother, adoptive mother and wife, many to tuberculosis. When Poe wrote it, his wife had just begun to show signs of her illness. Her pale face, her brilliant eyes, and her raven hair gave her an unearthly look. She retracted her statements in a letter to Osgood saying, "The letter shown me by Mrs Poe must have been a forgery" created by Poe himself. And then, most tragically of all, his child bride who he married when she was 13, died when she was about 22 of tuberculosis, after many many years of just declining health. Virginia Poe was one example. For the next couple of years the family changed home more than once in the hope that change of surroundings would help her condition. "[65] Even editor Hiram Fuller, whom Poe had previously sued for libel, attempted in the New York Mirror to garner support for Poe and his wife: "We, whom he has quarrelled with, will take the lead", he wrote.

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