Page 64 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

to mouth way of living, for he was often, often disappointed.

In 1845, a volume entitled, "Tales. By Edgar A. Poe," was published by
Wiley and Putnam, and in the same year "The Raven and Other Poems"

appeared in book form from the same publishing house. Poe also delivered
lectures, and by way of criticism carried on what was called the
"Longfellow War." Though he considered Longfellow the greatest

American poet, he accused him of plagiarism, or stealing some of his ideas,
which was very unjust on the part of Poe. Hawthorne and Lowell he praised

highly.

After the death of his wife, Poe was very melancholy. He went to lecture,

and to visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island, and in Lowell,
Massachusetts, and afterward went south to Richmond, where he planned

to raise enough money by lecturing to start The Stylus.

He was hospitably entertained in Richmond, and became engaged to marry

his boyhood’s first love, Miss Royster, now the widow, Mrs. Shelton. Their
marriage was to take place at once, and Poe started north to close up his

business in New York and bring Mrs. Clemm south. In Baltimore it seems
that he fell in with some politicians who were conducting an election. They
took him about from one polling place to another to vote illegally; then

some one drugged him, and left him on a bench near a saloon. Here he was
found by a printer, who notified his friends, and they sent him to the

hospital, where he died on the 7th of October, 1849. He was nearly
forty-one years old.

Poe had a great and wonderful mind. In the latter part of his life he gave
much of his time to a book called "Eureka," which was intended to explain

the meaning of the universe. Of course he was not a philosopher; but he
wrote some things in that book which were destined afterward to be
accepted by such great men as Darwin and Huxley and many others.

His life was so full of work and poverty, so crossed and crossed again by

unhappiness and hardship, that he never had time or strength of mind to
think out anything as he would otherwise have done. All his work is