Edgar Allan Poe, also known as the father of the short story, was a brilliant man of the nineteenth century. Many people of this era did not know of him in this manor, but nonetheless, he still established his own place in the history of American literature. During the time he was living, he was known as a harsh literary critic. He was not recognized as a great American author until after his death on October 7, 1849. Consequently, the writers of today make use of his novel ideas and apply his techniques to their own literary creations. He may have been a great influence on many people and a great writer, but he still led a life filled with personal hardships and tragedies. He wrote with a dark tone in the majority of his works. Walt Whitman once said, "Poe's verses illustrate an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, with a demonic undertone behind every page,"(Bloom 20). During the majority of his life, he held on to sanity by a thin string. One man comme!
             Even a man of harder temperament might well have been plunged into depressions by the illness and deaths, frustrations and reversals that punctuated Edgar Allan Poe's brief life. Numerous commentators have suggested that art itself was the therapy with which Poe held absolute insanity at bay; some claim he invented the detective story in order to keep from going mad (Galloway 20).
             Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was born the second son of David Jr., a former lawyer that turned to acting, and Elizabeth, an English actress. Their family was constantly in a financial turmoil, and when Poe's sister, Rosalie, was born in 1810, it put the Poe family in a financial strain. Shortly after the birth of Rosalie, Poe's mother, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a terminal illness. She died on December 8, 1811 at the young age of twenty-four. This was the first of many misfortunes Po...