A precarious literary profession
Poe was born to travelling actors in Boston in 1809. After his mother Eliza died in Richmond, John and Frances Allan took him into their household. His relationship with John grew difficult over money. He left the University of Virginia, served in the army and published his first collection of poems under the signature A Bostonian.
At Richmond’s Southern Literary Messenger, criticism became paid work. In Philadelphia he edited for Graham’s Magazine and published tales including The Murders in the Rue Morgue. In 1844 he moved to New York. The Raven made his name familiar far beyond the readership of any magazine that had employed him, although fame brought little financial security.
Tales and poems pictured by later artists
Poe died in Baltimore in 1849. The illustrated volumes here belong to his later readership. Harry Clarke supplied the drawings for Harrap’s 1919 Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Edmund Dulac illustrated The Bells and Other Poems for Hodder and Stoughton. The title poem moves through four metals, from the bright silver of sleigh bells to the tolling of iron. Where Dulac gives a scene to the eye, Poe changes the sound and weight of a single repeated word.
