‘Poe: A Life Cut Short’ by Peter Ackroyd

  In Peter Ackroyd’s “Brief Lives” series he has written about poet Geoffrey Chaucer, painter J.M.W. Turner and physicist Isaac Newton. This time around, Ackroyd turns his eye to American poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe.
  “Poe: A Life Cut Short” is a quick, easily read exploration of Poe’s sad childhood, his dependency on alcohol and his macabre fascination with death.
  Born in 1809, Poe was abandoned by his father and lost his mother to consumption. An orphan, he was adopted by John Allan, a wealthy businessman, and his wife, Frances. John Allan had a contentious relationship with his adoptive son, but Frances was kind to him until she, too, passed away from consumption.
  These early experiences with loss, Ackroyd says, influenced Poe’s dark writing and fueled his obsession with death. This preoccupation was only furthered when his wife (a cousin he married when she was a child) also died from consumption.
  “Poe: A Life Cut Short” details the poet’s bizarre alcohol binges, his remorse for embarrassing behavior and his self-pity over his destitution. Ackroyd does a wonderful job with this brief biography. He offers just enough, but not too much, for the reader to get a clear picture of Poe’s character.
  Like the salamander he could only live in fire. But the fire was often started by himself. He stumbled from one passionate outburst to the next. He hardly seemed to know himself at all, but relied upon the power of impassioned words to create his identity. He would sometimes tear at himself, heaping misery upon himself, estranging others even while realising that it was wrong to do so. He moved from disaster to calamity and back again. His entire life was a series of mistakes and setbacks, of disappointed hopes and thwarted ambitions. He proceeded as if he were the only one in the world — hence the spitefulness of his criticism. He drew attention to his solitary state in defiance and celebration, even as he lamented it in his letters. Thus at the centre of his work, was anger against the world. He had a heart always about to break.
  Ackroyd doesn’t solve the mystery behind Poe’s death, which has been attributed to delirium tremens, tuberculosis, brain tumor or diabetes. Ackroyd does offer some insight into Poe’s last days, but says, The well is too deep for the truth to be recovered.
  Poor Poe.
  He died in a hospital, on Sunday, 7 October 1849, a sad and beleaguered end to an unhappy and harassed life. He was forty years old.
  Ackroyd’s short biography on Poe is an unintimidating way to learn more about this poet, whose influence still is seen in modern literature.