A Defense of Edgar Allan Poe

📖 The Scoop

From the Preface:

BUT for the cruel aspersions upon the character and life of America's poetic genius, Edgar Allan Poe, this volume would have remained unwritten. Edgar Allan Poe has been more misunderstood than any other poet of the recent past. While his life was beautiful and inspired, yet aspersed, his last moments had more of sublimity than those of any of his contemporaries. The author of gems so delicate as "Annabel Lee," "The Raven," and "Lenore," while no less human and frail than others of his day, had a soul and heart that stamped him an offshoot of Divinity. In order that the story of Poe's life and his last hours may be corrected and the truth made known, the following pages have been received from his learned physician, Dr John J. Moran, who attended him in his last hours and who received from the expiring poet his dying declarations, with a brief history of his life. This full and complete statement will, for the first time, be given with the hope and belief of the publisher that the truth, so long delayed, will meet with sympathy and kindness from an impartial and discerning public, will dismiss the false impressions that have been made upon the mind of his friends, will triumph over envy, error and falsehood, and the pure stream of Poe's genius will flow on and on forever.

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / Literary Figures (fancy, right?)