Poe: A Life Cut Short

by Peter Ackroyd

-Ackroyd’s Brief Lives, Book 4-

(New York: Nan A. Talese, 2008)

Hardcover, 205 Pages, Biography

ISBN: 9780385508001, US$21.95

ABCD Rating: BACKLIST

From the Cover: Gothic, mysterious, theatrical, fatally flawed, and dazzling, the life of Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s greatest and most versatile writers, is the ideal subject for Peter Ackroyd. Poe wrote lyrical poetry and macabre psychological melodramas; invented the first fictional detective; and produced pioneering works of science fiction and fantasy. His innovative style, images, and themes had a tremendous impact on European romanticism, symbolism, and surrealism, and continue to influence writers today. In this essential addition to his canon of acclaimed biographies, Peter Ackroyd explores Poe’s literary accomplishments and legacy against the background of his erratic, dramatic, and sometimes sordid life. Ackroyd chronicles Poe’s difficult childhood, his bumpy academic and military careers, and his complex relationships with women, including his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin. He describes Poe’s much-written-about problems with gambling and alcohol with sympathy and insight, showing their connections to Poe’s childhood and the trials, as well as the triumphs, of his adult life. Ackroyd’s thoughtful, perceptive examinations of some of Poe’s most famous works shed new light on these classics and on the troubled and brilliant genius who created them.

My Review: Edgar Allan Poe is one of those literary figures that everyone knows, and yet no one really knows about. I include myself in that description, because for the last three years I have helped teach seventh graders about Poe (they read “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Purloined Letter”) and when I put together biographical information on Poe, so much of it was speculation and conjecture, that I only give the students a cursory overview of Poe’s life. (They are always kind of weirded out by the fact that Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin.)

So, on a recent visit to the library, when I saw this book on the New Book display, I decided that it was time I learned a little bit more about Edgar Allan Poe than the internet and Google could provide me, and Ackroyd seemed like a competent researcher and biographer, so I figured, why not?

Setting aside Poe’s considerable canon of excellent stories, the man’s life makes for very interesting reading. This is a person who, really, never got a single break in his life, or when he did, it was followed closely by tragedy. Poe’s life was—basically speaking—a string of tragedies. And yet, in and amongst all that tragedy, Poe managed to forge ahead and write some of the most compelling, enduring and, often, disturbing short stories in American letters. Of course, his biggest success in his lifetime was his magnum opus poem, “The Raven,” which garnered him, quite literally, overnight success. And yet, Poe was never able to overcome the crushing poverty and the pugnacious personality into which Poe was born.

What was most compelling, however, was Ackroyd’s ability to convey the utter impossibility knowing the complete details of Poe’s life, and yet being able to create a coherent narrative of such a life is a quite a talent. If you have ever wondered what kind of a mind and life gave rise to such wonderful and terrifying stories as “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Masque of the Red Death,” to name just a few, then pick up Ackroyd’s Poe: A Life Cut Short. You won’t be disappointed.