Borrow it
Coverart for item
The Resource Edgar Allan Poe : his life and legacy, Jeffrey Meyers

Edgar Allan Poe : his life and legacy, Jeffrey Meyers

Creator
Summary
Edgar Allan Poe, whose personal torment so powerfully informed his visionary prose and poetry, is a towering figure in the history of American literature. The archetype of the suffering artist, he lived from one extreme to the other: he knew fame and obscurity, wealth and destitution, and the loss of everything he cherished. His fevered imagination brought him to great heights of creativity and the depths of paranoiac despair. Yet although he produced a relatively small volume of work, he virtually invented the horror and detective genres and his literary legacy endures to this day. Jeffrey Meyers here charts Poe's life in astonishing detail, from its inauspicious beginnings through the mysterious events of his last weeks. He explores Poe's pathological need to ruin everything he strived for - in journalism, friendship and marriage. He also reveals Poe as a man of infinite paradox: a Virginia gentleman and the son of itinerant actors, the heir to a great fortune and a disinherited outcast, a university man who had failed to graduate, a soldier bought out of the army, a husband with an unapproachable child-bride, a brilliant editor and low-salaried hack, a world-renowned but impoverished author, a temperate man and uncontrollable alcoholic, a materialist who yearned for a final union with God. As he turns from the life to the works, Meyers combines psychological insight with critical acumen. He analyzes the neglected stories "The Man That Was Used Up," "The Man of the Crowd" and "The Premature Burial," and shows how even his most bizarre tales, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat," are grounded in Poe's life experiences. Finally, through lively anecdote, Meyers gives Poe's literary legacy its due, covering his three distinct reputations - in America, England and France - and his powerful influence on modern writers from Nietzsche to Nabokov. Told brilliantly by Jeffrey Meyers, the story of Poe's life is rivaled for bizarre drama only by his extraordinary fiction
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
xii, 348 pages, [8] pages of plates
Contents
  • 1. An Inauspicious Birth, 1809-1811
  • 2. Childhood: John Allan and England, 1812-1825
  • 3. The University of Virginia, 1826
  • 4. The Army and West Point, 1827-1831
  • 5. Baltimore: Maria Clemm and Early Stories, 1831-1834
  • 6. Richmond: The Southern Literary Messenger and Marriage, 1835-1836
  • 7. Philadelphia: Burton's Magazine, 1837-1840
  • 8. Philadelphia: Graham's Magazine, 1841-1843
  • 9. A Lion in New York, 1844-1845
  • 10. New York: The Broadway Journal, 1845
  • 11. Fordham and Literary Quarrels, 1846-1847
  • 12. Fordham: Eureka and Hopeless Love, 1848
  • 13. Drink, Delirium and Death, 1849
  • 14. Reputation
  • 15. Influence
Isbn
9780684193700
Link
http://www.gbv.de/dms/bowker/toc/9780684193700.pdf
Instance
Label
Edgar Allan Poe : his life and legacy
Title
Edgar Allan Poe
Title remainder
his life and legacy
Statement of responsibility
Jeffrey Meyers
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Edgar Allan Poe, whose personal torment so powerfully informed his visionary prose and poetry, is a towering figure in the history of American literature. The archetype of the suffering artist, he lived from one extreme to the other: he knew fame and obscurity, wealth and destitution, and the loss of everything he cherished. His fevered imagination brought him to great heights of creativity and the depths of paranoiac despair. Yet although he produced a relatively small volume of work, he virtually invented the horror and detective genres and his literary legacy endures to this day. Jeffrey Meyers here charts Poe's life in astonishing detail, from its inauspicious beginnings through the mysterious events of his last weeks. He explores Poe's pathological need to ruin everything he strived for - in journalism, friendship and marriage. He also reveals Poe as a man of infinite paradox: a Virginia gentleman and the son of itinerant actors, the heir to a great fortune and a disinherited outcast, a university man who had failed to graduate, a soldier bought out of the army, a husband with an unapproachable child-bride, a brilliant editor and low-salaried hack, a world-renowned but impoverished author, a temperate man and uncontrollable alcoholic, a materialist who yearned for a final union with God. As he turns from the life to the works, Meyers combines psychological insight with critical acumen. He analyzes the neglected stories "The Man That Was Used Up," "The Man of the Crowd" and "The Premature Burial," and shows how even his most bizarre tales, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat," are grounded in Poe's life experiences. Finally, through lively anecdote, Meyers gives Poe's literary legacy its due, covering his three distinct reputations - in America, England and France - and his powerful influence on modern writers from Nietzsche to Nabokov. Told brilliantly by Jeffrey Meyers, the story of Poe's life is rivaled for bizarre drama only by his extraordinary fiction
Biography type
individual biography
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Meyers, Jeffrey
Dewey number
  • 818/.309
  • B
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • plates
Index
index present
LC call number
PS2631
LC item number
.M48 1992
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Poe, Edgar Allan
  • Poe, Edgar Allan
  • Poe, Edgar Allan
  • Poe, Edgar Allan
  • Authors, American
  • Authors, American
  • Autores norteamericanos
Label
Edgar Allan Poe : his life and legacy, Jeffrey Meyers
Link
http://www.gbv.de/dms/bowker/toc/9780684193700.pdf
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-337) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
1. An Inauspicious Birth, 1809-1811 -- 2. Childhood: John Allan and England, 1812-1825 -- 3. The University of Virginia, 1826 -- 4. The Army and West Point, 1827-1831 -- 5. Baltimore: Maria Clemm and Early Stories, 1831-1834 -- 6. Richmond: The Southern Literary Messenger and Marriage, 1835-1836 -- 7. Philadelphia: Burton's Magazine, 1837-1840 -- 8. Philadelphia: Graham's Magazine, 1841-1843 -- 9. A Lion in New York, 1844-1845 -- 10. New York: The Broadway Journal, 1845 -- 11. Fordham and Literary Quarrels, 1846-1847 -- 12. Fordham: Eureka and Hopeless Love, 1848 -- 13. Drink, Delirium and Death, 1849 -- 14. Reputation -- 15. Influence
Control code
ocm26053669
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
xii, 348 pages, [8] pages of plates
Isbn
9780684193700
Lccn
92017890
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
  • (Sirsi) o26053669
  • (OCoLC)26053669
Label
Edgar Allan Poe : his life and legacy, Jeffrey Meyers
Link
http://www.gbv.de/dms/bowker/toc/9780684193700.pdf
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-337) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
1. An Inauspicious Birth, 1809-1811 -- 2. Childhood: John Allan and England, 1812-1825 -- 3. The University of Virginia, 1826 -- 4. The Army and West Point, 1827-1831 -- 5. Baltimore: Maria Clemm and Early Stories, 1831-1834 -- 6. Richmond: The Southern Literary Messenger and Marriage, 1835-1836 -- 7. Philadelphia: Burton's Magazine, 1837-1840 -- 8. Philadelphia: Graham's Magazine, 1841-1843 -- 9. A Lion in New York, 1844-1845 -- 10. New York: The Broadway Journal, 1845 -- 11. Fordham and Literary Quarrels, 1846-1847 -- 12. Fordham: Eureka and Hopeless Love, 1848 -- 13. Drink, Delirium and Death, 1849 -- 14. Reputation -- 15. Influence
Control code
ocm26053669
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
xii, 348 pages, [8] pages of plates
Isbn
9780684193700
Lccn
92017890
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
  • (Sirsi) o26053669
  • (OCoLC)26053669

Subject

Genre

Library Locations

    • Waubonsee: Sugar Grove Campus - Todd LibraryBorrow it
      Collins Hall 2nd Floor Waubonsee Community College Route 47 at Waubonsee Drive, Sugar Grove, IL, 60554, US
      41.7974000 -88.45785

Library Links

Structured data from the Bibframe namespace is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Waubonsee Community College. Additional terms may apply to data associated with third party namespaces.