JäsenEdgarAllanPoeLibrary

The works included in Poe’s Legacy Library are pulled directly from his critiques. This proposal assumes that if Poe critiqued the article, he also read and/or owned the book at some point. Poe’s critiques can be found at http://www.eapoe.org/works/criticsm. The books chosen to be included in the Legacy Library only include those works that experts agree were written by Poe himself. Any critiques that were questionable or were at any point attributed to a different author are not included. Additionally, works chosen had to have a critique longer than two paragraphs. This proposal assumes that the longer the review, the more likely it is that Poe felt strongly about the book and thus, was more likely to own the book.

Bibliographic information was taken directly from Poe’s reviews (including spellings) when possible. Where bibliographic information was missing, information was taken from WorldCat at http://www.worldcat.org/. In some instances, information from WorldCat was unclear or unavailable so information was sought from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/ and http://books.google.com/ in regard to the publication date.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809 to David and Elizabeth Poe. Elizabeth died when Edgar was 2 years old. She had already separated from David Poe by the time she passed away. Edgar had two siblings- Henry and Rosalie. When Elizabeth died Henry went to live with grandparents, Rosalie went to live with another family member, and Edgar was adopted by a local couple- Mr. and Mrs. John Allan. Mrs. Allan died when Edgar was 20 and Mr. Allan died when Edgar was 25. As a very young child Poe went to school in England. At age 11 he returned to America to continue his education. At 17 years of age he attended University of Virginia but later dropped out. He joined the Army at age 18 and attained the rank of Sergeant Major. During the 1830's and 1840's, Edgar wrote, edited, and published. Edgar married his cousin, Virginia. Virginia died at age 25. About two years later Edgar met Sarah Shelton whom he planned to marry later that year. Before he could marry her, Edgar died at 40 years of age. Biographical information about Edgar Allan Poe was pulled from http://poestories.com/index.php.