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Death of Edgar Allan Poe.(Brief Article)

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From: History Today
Date: 19991001
Author:Cavendish, Richard

October 7th, 1849

THE LAST DAYS of the short, drunken, quarrelsome and unhappy life of Edgar Allan Poe were almost as grim as one of his own macabre stories. Drink was Poe's nemesis, allied with poverty after his rich guardian cut him off with nothing, his inability to hold down a job and the tragedy of his young wife Virginia, or `Sissy' as he called her. She married him in 1834 when she was only thirteen and he was twenty-seven, and already a heavy drinker. In 1842 she fell ill with tuberculosis and the prospect of her inevitable death wore desperately hard on Poe's nerves. ...

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