Edgar allan poe how many wives

Osgood confided to Mrs. Whitman that Mrs. Further, Griswold is a convicted liar and forger and English a convicted liar and coward. I certainly agree with Professor Mabbott, however, in his judgment that we ought to be grateful to Mrs. Clemm for the care she bestowed on Poe despite her limitations and her defects of character.

But clearly Professor Mabbott did not like her. Photographs are only recordings of light and shade; they show nothing in depth and nothing in the round.

Poe himself paid tribute to Mrs. From a biographical point of view, this sonnet is certainly one of his most revealing literary works:. Clemm may have proved a trial to Poe on some occasions, but there is no reason to think his tribute to her was not close to his actual sentiments. Clemm, once represented, promptly disappears into the background.

In this triad we have, no doubt, Mrs. Clemm, Virginia, and Poe himself. These fancies amount to a series of archetypal images commonly associated with erotic and sexual life: the trees burst out into strange, brilliant, star-shaped flowers; the white daisies shrunk away and were replaced by ruby-red asphodels. Further, animal life sprung forth everywhere: a tall flamingo flaunted its scarlet plumage and gold and silver fish haunted the stream.

But having climbed the tree of knowledge and eaten of the forbidden fruit, their Age of Innocence is over. They have fallen into the Age of Experience. The prescient Eleonora realized that she had, as it were, been bitten by the serpent and would soon die — experience poisons innocence, which then must perish. The star-shaped flowers shrunk and disappeared, the green grass faded, the ruby-red asphodels withered away, the tall, scarlet flamingo flew off, the gold and silver fish departed, the melodious music ceased, and the gold and crimson cloud vanished.

The importance of the tale for us here, however, is its autobiographical aspect. Thinking of his idyllic life with Mrs. Then, when he joined the Southern Literary Messenger and moved to Richmond, he began to think passionately of marrying Virginia. Clemm and her daughter eventually joined Poe in Richmond, where Virginia did become his wife. In his imagination, then, Virginia had been his honey girl and dream girl of the happy valley, i.

In short, Poe, Virginia, and Mrs. When she grew older, to ripen into a woman as she approached fourteen, his attitude changed. Although petite, she was attractively proportioned, limber, graceful, and playful.

Her features were pretty, if they fell short of being beautiful. She had bright eyes that looked forth from under somewhat heavy lids; her sensuous lips formed a sort of pout; and her high, pale forehead was topped by straight, black hair parted in the middle. Her words were uttered with the suggestion of a lisp.

She had no tendency towards intellectualism and little toward the literary, not caring much for poetry at all. She was mostly concerned with girlish fancies and playing with girl friends.

Only six short years after the marriage, she was to become invalided by consumption. Her condition fluctuated for a few years until she became bedridden and steadily grew worse, to terminate, finally, with her death.

Poe could never forget the fatal day in January when Virginia burst a blood vessel while singing. By August , however, her health became so precarious that Poe feared for her recovery, and by autumn he knew that she was going to die.

Mary Gove Nichols visited the Poes at their Fordham cottage at this time, and in she recalled:. The autumn came, and Mrs. Poe sank rapidly in consumption, and I saw her in her bedchamber. There was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but a snow white spread and sheets. The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany there [[the]] hectic fever of consumption.

The wonderful cat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The day before she died, he wrote a hasty note to Mrs. May God grant her life until she sees you and thanks you once again!

But come — oh come to-morrow! The next day, Saturday, 30 January , Virginia breathed her last. Grief-stricken, Poe never completely recovered from his loss. Virginia had been a good wife to Poe in her own limited way. There is no doubt that he loved her. When she died, he could not look upon her in death. If all men have mothers and grandmothers, they also generally have sisters, aunts, female cousins, wives and mothers-in-law. Poe was no exception to this general rule.

Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of his friend and classmate, Robert Stanard. Both boys attended the Richmond school conducted by William Burke. Stanard was a beautiful woman in her thirties who treated the fourteen-year-old Poe with kindness and sympathy. Deeply impressed by her beauty and charm, Poe fell passionately in love with the much older woman, visiting her home frequently.

Indeed, in later years Mrs. Clemm told Mrs. Stanard] for sympathy, and she always consoled and comforted him. Unfortunately Mrs. Stanard, despite her beauty of face and figure, was neither in good physical nor mental health, and by the spring of she suddenly fell very ill. On 28 April her mind totally deranged, she died. Young Edgar was deeply grieved. Poe never forgot the beautiful Mrs. Stanard and his pubescent romance with her. However much this opening stanza pertains to weariness and loneliness Poe felt after tossing on a sea of troubles in the Allan household and to relief and joy he experienced when he laid his head on Mrs.

Poe delineates the physical loveliness of Mrs. This claim, however, is simply one of his romantic exaggerations designed to hoax. Poe himself was no doubt surprised that anyone was gullible enough to believe him.

Botta , an author and a hostess to the literati of New York, he was invited to one of her habitual affairs at Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. Anna Cora Mowatt, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt, Miss Margaret Fuller, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, and Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, and others. Several of the literary ladies — all with husbands — were sufficiently attracted to Poe to attempt the establishment of an intimate friendship with him.

From the time Poe had married Virginia, he had maintained no intimate relations with women outside the members of his family. Of course, he carried on friendly business relations with a few women who were authors and editors such as Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney and Mrs[[. This was a course which by early he was to regret bitterly. If, then, was his annus mirabilis from a literary point of view, from a personal point of view it was the prologue to misfortune and downfall.

Frances Sargent Osgood , estranged wife of portrait painter, Samuel S. Osgood, at Aster House in March In short, she was a flirt, a coquette. She flirted with Poe as well as with Rufus W. Griswold, the anthologist and editor, and Edward J. Thomas, a merchant. Poe had become an associate editor of the Broadway Journal in February , and in March he became editor and part owner.

In response, Mrs. Now it appeared to the public that Mrs. The readership of the Broadway Journal , however, had no way of knowing about this method. Again scandalous rumors circulated in the streets and homes of New York town. Now genuinely alarmed, Mrs. The winter weather had become too much for Mrs. During her absence, another literary lady, Mrs. At any rate, Mrs. Ellet, whom she now saw as her rival. Consequently, Mrs. Despite being characterized by Mrs. Osgood as a lamia and a monster, Mrs.

Ellet rejected the casting. Assuming the role of good and innocent Christabel, as it were, she replied on 27 December. She implied that her imposition into the affair — thus acknowledging that she had indeed intervened in an attempt to halt it — resulted solely from a desire to save Mrs.

Actually, the literary courtship that Mrs. Osgood had begun in the Broadway Journal on 5 April had ended with her poem vindicating Poe of any wrongdoing on 29 November, and this joust between Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Ellet was simply an aftermath of the romance. Nevertheless, another aftermath was that Poe and Mrs. Osgood did in fact privately form an ardent, close friendship.

She did not disapprove of their friendship, however, because she thought that Mrs. Osgood was good for Poe, exercising a stabilizing influence on him. Poe and Mrs. Osgood corresponded regularly, and he allowed Virginia and Mrs.

Clemm to read her letters. He also visited Mrs. Osgood at her home, openly and apparently, about an evening a week, usually with other guests present. He sometimes accompanied her when she gave a poetry reading or a lecture. Poe had known Shelton since childhood, when they were neighbors and first took a romantic interest in each other.

They fell out of contact when Poe left for University of Virginia and Shelton married another man. By that time, Shelton was a widow and Poe took the opportunity to ask her to marry him. She declined, but he continued to pursue her for several months.

Poe wrote to his aunt, Muddy, to tell her that the two would be married in October but he died just ten days before the supposed wedding date arrived. Rumors circulated that the two were not truly engaged. Elmira Shelton was not the only woman who connected herself more closely to Poe after his death. Poe met Whitman in , almost a year before he reconnected with Shelton.

Unfortunately, the deathly list would only become much longer. During a year in college in , Poe met the young and beautiful Sarah Elmira Royster. Mesmerised by her splendour and in need of companionship, Poe soon wanted to propose to Royster.

When it seemed that utter disappointment would not abate, Royster got engaged to someone else. Poe, experiencing yet another loss, felt betrayed and abandoned.

It seemed like any woman he ever loved, he would lose. The couple, however, met again years later during the summer of and Royster recognised Poe right away. She was now a widow of Alexander Shelton and Poe, still in love with her, wanted to propose once more. Before August ended, rumours were spread about an apparent wedding of Royster and Poe, which in fact never happened.

It is believed that Poe and Royster saw each other for the last time in the late Back in Poe enlisted in the United States Army and while he was serving with his regiment his foster mother, Fanny Allan, got gravely ill. It was in February when, as a consequence of serious condition and poor medical help, Fanny passed away. While she was slowly dying in pain, Poe remained helpless, kept away from any information about her health as his foster father who was not very fond of Poe failed to send him a letter.

After Fanny Allan died, Poe blamed himself for not being able to keep her away from the arms of death. Having witnessed several deaths at the age of barely twenty, Poe began to understand that love could not last forever. He suffered from constant anxiety and a fear of abandonment, terrified that any woman he loved would be always taken away from him. The dread of relationships and death had planted a seed that would soon bloom into the frightful stories and haunting poetry we know today.

The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspicious lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death.

They moved several times while in Philadelphia and in their last home there, in Spring Garden, Virginia was well enough to tend the flower garden and entertain visitors by playing the harp or the piano and singing. In this humble domicile I can say that I have spent some of the pleasantest hours of my life — certainly some of the most intellectual. They were passed in the company of the poet himself and his wife — a lady angelically beautiful in person and not less beautiful in spirit.

No one who remembers that dark-eyed, dark-haired daughter of Virginia — her own name, if I rightly remember — her grace, her facial beauty, her demeanor, so modest as to be remarkable — no one who has ever spent an hour in her company but will endorse what I have said above. I remember how we, the friends of the poet, used to talk of her high qualities. And when we talked of her beauty, I well knew that the rose-tint upon her cheek was too bright, too pure to be of Earth. The Poe family next moved to New York City sometime in early April , traveling by train and steamboat.

Virginia waited on board the ship while her husband secured space at a boarding house on Greenwich Street. Edgar Allan Poe became associate editor of the Broadway Journal in February , and the following month, editor and part owner. There he alienated himself from other writers with his biting literary criticism in that paper, going so far as to accuse Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.

Poe attracted her interest with a public compliment during a lecture about the terrible state of American poetry, he singled her out as a rare exception.

The issue was that they both were married, Fanny to portrait painter Samuel Osgood, from whom she was estranged. Now 23, Virginia Clemm Poe, now housebound with tuberculosis, was aware of the friendship and might have actually encouraged it, seeing something in Osgood that was worthwhile for her literary husband. At the same time another poet and writer, Elizabeth Ellet, became enamored of Poe and jealous of Osgood. But he did not respond to her advances.

Although the rumors upset Virginia, she never doubted her husband. Ellet took this incriminating information straight to Fanny Osgood, who was already worried about her reputation in light of a new development — she was pregnant. He then gathered up the letters Ellet had written to him and left them at her house. Poe must have been a forgery. For Poe, the result was disastrous.

His reputation was tainted and he was excluded from the New York literary salons. Although Poe and Osgood never saw each other after , his relationship with her — which he called an amour — is generally considered a meaningful one.