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AdamSmith

How people die in Edgar Allan Poe

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Given the never-ending tsuris that dogged Poe throughout his life, I'm surprised his characters got off as easy as they did.

With consumption taking his beloved wife (his cousin whom he met when she was nearly nine and married four years later), he was unable to escape his demons even through drink, as a single glass of wine or weak cider was enough to get him snockered.

Unable to hold a job for long, he lived well below the poverty line nearly every year of his adult life and his family eventually tired of bailing him out. He wrote in the days before copyright law, with the initial payment for a poem or story usually all he ever got. Others, though, did profit from his work.

According to one article, here's Poe's take for a number of his best pieces:

MS. Found in a Bottle - $50 (a prize, not a payment)

Ligeia - $10

The Haunted Palace - $5

The Fall of the House of Usher - $24

William Wilson - $50

The Murders in the Rue Morgue - $56

The Masque of the Red Death - $12

The Tell-Tale Heart - $10

The Black Cat - $20

The Gold-Bug - $100 (a prize, not a payment, and likely Poe's largest haul)

The Purloined Letter - $12

The Raven - $9 (Earning him a fraction of what he made on The Gold-Bug, Poe wrote, “The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.”)

The Cask of Amontillado - $15

Ulalume - $20

Eureka - $14 (an advance, and probably all he ever got)

The Bells - $45

Annabel Lee - $10

Frankly, had it been me, I doubt any of my characters would have endured less than getting their kishkas wound around a windlass.

martyrdomofsterasmus_large.jpg

(Actually, poor St. Elmo, pictured above, blazed that trail, also enduring other defilements that are best discovered on an empty stomach.)

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