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As most people know, Poe had a rough early childhood. His father, David, abandoned the family. His mother, Eliza, died with young Edgar was only two years old. She was a famous actress at a time when acting was still considered a bit inappropriate for a woman.

Eliza’s death and information about her three orphaned children made the papers. Edgar’s older brother, Henry, was taken in by their grandparents. Edgar was taken in by local Richmond merchant, John Allan and his wife Francis. They had no children. Apparently, Francis persuaded another family to take in Edgar’s younger sister, Rosalie.

The children were split up. They communicated by letters, but were not raised as a family. Francis Allan raised Edgar like her own son and he was deeply devoted to her. The relationship with John Allan was rocky and influenced the rest of Edgar’s life and career.

John Allan was an enterprising merchant in Richmond. As part of his business he traveled back to his homeland of Scotland, then England for several years with his wife and Edgar. It seems that Allan was really supportive of Edgar right up until he became a teenager.

Allan provided Edgar with top-notch schooling overseas and continued that support back in the states when they returned from abroad. Edgar was consistently accomplished academically and seemed to want to please his foster father. Allan apparently expected Edgar to join him in running the business, but Edgar was drawn to the arts: poetry and literature.

Allan sent 17yo Edgar to the University of Virginia in 1826. This took money. Only wealthy, white men could go to the school. Also since the students all came from the ruling class of the antebellum South, the boys were expected to flash good amounts of spending money and participate in social activities like gambling, drinking, and fighting.

Higher education in America for a very long time was supposed to be for “finishing” a man. Yes, you had to take classes and were expected to work at that, but not toooo hard. Universities were supposed to prepare men to lead in business and society. Academia was only part of the work. The socializing was the other part. That’s how we eventually get secret societies and social fraternities. They were reflections of what the boys’ fathers did in their business and social clubs.

Edgar entered this environment with the complete confidence that he was the almost-real-son of very rich and respected businessman. Edgar excelled in his classes, aceing his exams and wowing his classmates, but he also played the role of the Southern gentry, by drinking and gambling. Apparently, he didn’t get into any fights, but man was he bad at gambling.

How bad? This was what shocked me in the biography. Apparently, young Edgar racked up (in today’s money) $60,000 in gambling debts. OMG

If you study Poe’s life, you know that John Allan was a real jerk in a lot of ways, but man, I’m sorta with him on this one. He paid off Poe’s education bills, but refused to pay the gambling debts, yanked Edgar out of school and brought him back to Richmond.

In letters to each other and in Allan’s letters to other family members, you can see his fight with Edgar just balloon into a full rejection of his foster son and everything slowly falls apart for Edgar.

Over the years of Edgar’s childhood, John Allan had conflicting feelings. On the one hand, he has a child calling him “pa”. His wife is deeply in love with the boy, buuuut, Allan never let go of the idea that Edgar wasn’t his “real son”, and he slowly began to resent his own wife for her relationship with the boy and probably for her pushing him to take in the orphan.

Francis Allan’s health took at turn when they were overseas, and she slowly got worst back in the states. John Allan cheated on her a couple of times and ended up with three illegitimate children. I don’t know how much Francis knew about the other kids, but Edgar definitely knew and deeply resented Allan for how he treated Francis. Allan also indulged in gossip about Edgar’s mother, Eliza, conjecturing that Rosalie was born from an affair. I assume he was projecting.

John Allan has all of this going on, then his “not-real-son” does EXACTLY what boys from that social class were all doing when they went off to University. Edgar is a teen at this point so he’s just extra moody and ready to fight, but doesn’t have the blood connection to save the relationship. Allan probably sees the looming death of his wife and knows he will finally get to marry his mistress and start over fresh with the family he actually wants.

Edgar’s debt and teen-angst just gives Allan the fuel to fight even more. He accuses Edgar of not being grateful and wasting his time on literature while at the university rather than focusing on business. This is a totally expected thing for a really successful businessman to get mad about, but, with the benefit of history, let’s all just take a moment to appreciate how very very wrong John Allan was to criticize Poe for focusing too much on writing.

Edgar and Allan (see where the middle name came from?) had some royal fighting. Then Edgar did what any really pissed off teenager would do; he begged Allan for some travel cash and left home, never to return. He got to Boston (a town his mother loved), and immediately fell into poverty. Edgar worked at a few low end jobs, borrowed from friends, then followed the route of his grandfather and so many men in America who have no other place to go: He joined the army.

I’ll stop here, but you see the influence as a recurring theme in Poe’s writings: an unappreciated genius, cut off from a wealthy family, pushed to the outskirts of well-to-do society.

But, holy christ, $60,000 in gambling debts. I knew Allan was rich, but I didn’t realize just how rich considering young Edgar (and friends) expected this debt would be covered. It’s shocking for me to think about, but even back then, being super rich in America was just a different life. / #edgarallanpoe