Despite the efforts to keep a balance of emotions, this is a society that slows down to look at traffic accidents. When its time to go to bed, they secretly make sure the closet door is shut. Fear keeps hearts pumping and adrenalin rushing. It's an emotion that reminds them of how vulnerable, and precious human life is. Edger Allan Poe was the first writer to start horror, death, and mystery into literature and poetry. He set higher standards of writing, as dark as his life may be. A look into Poe's childhood might tell where his fascination with death came from.
Edgar Allan Poe was born to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr. in Boston on January 19, 1809. His mother was an actress, his father, a heavy drinker. Around Poe's second birthday his father abandoned his wife and three children, leaving Elizabeth to support the family as best she could. The struggle eventually took a toll on her health. She died of tuberculosis in December 1811. John and Frances Allan who never legally adopted young Edgar took him in. In 1815, his new family went to England where Poe attended Manor House School and other schools for five years. It was also in England where young Poe took interest in Gothic literature, which was very popular at that time. However, John Allan forbad him from studying what his heart desired: poetry. When Poe was 15, Jane Stith Standard, a person he looked up to like his idealistic mother, died. In February 1829, an untimely death to his stepmother struck again. .
In 1834, Poe went back to Richmond when he got the news that his stepfather is sick. He hoped that their conflicts would come to an end, but the dying man refused to see Poe. He moved back to Richmond with his aunt and cousin. He published his first true horror story, "Berenice- in 1835. On May 16, 1836, he married his cousin Virginia when she was just thirteen. With his newlywed wife and aunt, he moved to New York City.
