This is a good, short, sympathetic biography of Poe written by a descendent of Poe's uncle and former president of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

It isn't as dry as Quinn's Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography or full of silly Freudian nonsense as Silverman's Edgar A Poe: Mournful and Neverending Remembrance. On the other hand, its brevity sacrifices an in-depth look at all but a few of his famous works and their composition. It's a chronological look at Poe with brief asides that include the villainy of his adopted father John Allan, his time at Sullivan's Island and West Point, his probable and "shameful" employment as a manual laborer, his one and only suit, and the circumstances surrounding the famous "Ultimata Thule" daguerrotype showing a doomed-looking Poe shortly after a suicide attempt.

The book tries hard to negate the stereotype of Poe as a crazy, morose drunk. It acknowledges his alcohol problems - whatever their cause, but it also emphasizes his humor and charm and early physical robustness. Poe's influence on various arts and, particularly, the detective and science fiction genres is mentioned. And, of course, no biography would be complete without looking at his mysterious death and the character assassination his literary executor Griswold committed.

The separate facsimiles, in cellophane envelopes, of the marriage certificate of Poe's parents, letters between Poe and John Allan, Poe's army enlistment records, the bond for Poe and Virginia's marriage, the newspaper appearance of "Manuscript Found in a Bottle", the first printing of "The Raven", Poe's beautiful handwriting for the poem "A Valentine" and "For Annie", the Ultima Thule portrait, and the writer's obituary are not the gimmicks they first seem. They really do evoke a bit of the man and his time.

Nicely illustrated throughout , this book should appeal to any Poe fan. ( )

From this book I discovered that Edgar Poe (the "Allan" part was not added until after he died, by the way) was not as dark and depressing as one might think based on the standard works exposed to students in English class. He wrote a wide variety of materials, yet was so often ahead of the time that he was never really financially successful and gained more than a few literary rivals. One of which, in the most devastating part of the story to me, stole his estate after his premature death and wrote all kinds of lies along with his published works for decades. Text written by a distant cousin and past president of the Poe Foundation. I enjoyed learning that most mystery writers include a "hat tip" to Poe or his character Dupin in their detective stories. ( )