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There are tons of quotes floating around attributed to Poe, both real and apocryphal. They're always artistic, Gothic, moody, befitting the Master of the Macbre and comfortably matching his pop culture image. But my personal favorite is from a personal letter.

The earliest authenticated letter we have is young Edgar in college at the University of Virginia writing excitedly to his foster father, John Allen.
In the letter, Edgar describes a violent fight he saw between two students on campus (both men; women weren't allowed to have higher education).
Edgar writes that he saw one boy bite the other's arm so hard that the skin tore open, exposing muscle.

Now, most historians agree that this probably didn't happen. It's more likely that there was a bad fight, but Edgar exaggerated the results; a young writer showing his interests in exciting narrative depictions of extreme imagery.
This is all very interesting and sheds a light on Poe's later themes.
But that's not the part that got me.

What I love is the postscript.

After this breathless tale of violence and gore, Edgar signs off to his foster father, but adds a last minute afterthought:

"P.S. — Please send soap."

I adore this line. It's not the Master of the Macabre, Creator of the Mystery Genre, Literary Giant.
It's a kid in college asking his foster father for a basic necessity.

It's so human. So normal. So common.

That's the Edgar you could meet. You could hang out with and talk about poetry and short stories and all his hopes for the future.

That one line "P.S. — Please send soap." cuts through 174 years of cultural baggage and reveals the real person behind the legend.

It reminds me we are fundamentally struggling with the same challenges.

We may work very hard and be very lucky to develop our talents and skills into something really profound, but in the end, we all need the same things: love, support, friendship, food, shelter, and soap.

"P.S. — Please send soap."
Edgar Allan Poe

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