Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream Within a Dream

The life of Edgar Allan Poe was definitely a dream within a dream itself. Infamous literary author
extraordinaire is credited as being the father of the detective story and early science fiction forms.
Mysterious conglomerations of facts still surround him that may never be solved making him
more myth than man. A few “Poefiles” (fans of Poe’s writings) have dug up a few interesting facts
clueing in on some of his inexplicable unknowns.
He was born on January 19, 1809 the second child to traveling actors in Boston, Massachusetts.
The wealthy tobacco merchant Allan family in Richmond, Virginia fostered Poe at age three upon the
untimely death of both birth parents. They raised him to become a tobacco business gentleman, but his
dreams sailed on literary seas navigated by his idol Lord Byron. The headmaster at his school discouraged
him from publishing his poems at age 13. Edgar attempted to attend the University of Virginia only to end
up burning his furniture to stay warm and engaged in gambling to raise money to pay outlandish college
expenses.
Served in the United States Army in 1827as a private where he published the ill-received
“Tamerlane and Other Poems” under the pen name Edgar A. Perry. Only a few hundred copies were
printed and only a meager handful of 12 survive today. Edgar Allan Poe was also a bit of a jokester
having perpetrated a hoax in 1844.
A new story about a three-day gas balloon air trip across the ocean sent public masses madly
scrambling to read about it. Fellow author Jules Verne was an admirer of Poe having credited him with
the initiation of science fiction. One of Verne’s characters divulges the balloon hoax in his book “From
the Earth to the Moon”.
Another mystery encompasses debates of his supposed engagement to Sarah Elmira Royster
Shelton. They knew each other as teenagers aged a year apart. Edgar pursued Sarah in 1848 a year after
the death of his wife first cousin Virginia Clemm. Poe shipped off to Baltimore to his unexpected death
after Sarah expressed that she needed more time to consider his marriage offer. They were never officially
engaged.
Edgar Allan Poe was discovered bewildered and disheveled in oversized clothes and shoes on the
streets of Baltimore. A Dr. John Moran alone treated him refusing to allow visitors. Dr. Moran
continually altered accounts of Poe’s death and the exact time of his death many times over that the how,
what and why questions may never be revealed. The master of macabre passed into the great unknown on
October 7, 1849. His death certificate and all medical records have dissipated without trace up to this day.

The Tell-Tale Heart - A Story of Memorable Fiction

 Edgar Allan Poe was a great writer who was born in the early eighteen hundreds. He was
considered one of the very first short story writers of his time.
The Tell-Tale Heart was a short story that brought him world acclaim. It was first published in
1843 when Poe was thirty-four years old. This thought provoking short story was first put into print in
Boston, Massachusetts in a journal called The Pioneer. Tell Tale Heart was considered Gothic fiction
during this Romantic Movement period.
A Tell-Tale Heart is a story of a murder most heinous and a narrator who fights his insanity. The
Tell Tale Heart is a short story about a narrator who cannot stand the pale blue eye of the old man
that lives with the narrator. In this story, the narrator, has such acute senses that this eye seems to be
driving the narrator crazy.
This story states that the narrator has nothing against the old man, the narrator even loves him,
but it is the old man's eye that the narrator hates. Murder is soon committed by the narrator. Insanely, the
narrator cuts up the body of the old man and puts it under the old man's floor boards in the room in which
he slept.
As the story goes, it is the old man's heart that keeps on beating under the floor and this beating
causes the narrator to confess to the crime. There has been much debate over the narrator in the Tell-Tale
Heart. Many believe that the narrator in this short story is a man while others believe it is a woman. It
leaves the reader guessing as to the gender of the narrator.
The narrator's identity is not revealed throughout the story. There is another person in this story
whose identity is kept secret. Whoever the narrator is telling the story to is also not revealed. Edgar Allan
Poe has a way of keeping everyone wondering who is who in this story. He only reveals the bare
minimum of facts about his cast of characters. Names of the murderer and the murdered are not
mentioned as well as where they lived or what was their relationship to each other.
Film and radio both have used the story of The Tell-Tale Heart for entertainment. They have
taken bits and pieces from Edgar Allan Poe's short story to use in movies and on the radio. This story has
inspired such films as "Sleep No More" and the public radio version of "The Tell-Tale Heart". Vincent
Price, who was a well-known actor, recited this short story with four other Edgar Allan Poe stories in a
film made for television. Tell Tale Heart left a legacy of fine literature.