History Creator / EdgarAllanPoe

-->-- '''[[Creator/ArthurConanDoyle Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]'''

* VictorianNovelDisease: See above.

* WouldHitAGirl: The king in "Hop-Frog" who throws a glass of wine at the dancer Trippetta because she asked him to stop tormenting Hop-Frog. He and the courtiers who laughed pay for their cruelty when Hop-Frog turns them into a human chandelier.
** A [[IncendiaryExponent LIT]] human chandelier, to clarify.
* YouCantFightFate: "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". Each also fits a second trope, respectively WhileRomeBurns and BalancingDeathsBooks.

* TwistEnding
* TyphoidMary: Due to how many people close to him died of Tuberculosis, he is speculated as being an asymptomatic carrier of Tuberculosis.

* WindowsOfTheSoul: "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether".
-->''"Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane; and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes which half led me to imagine she was not."''

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe, January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, the [[TropeMakers inventor]] of the modern [[HorrorLiterature horror story]] and the modern [[DetectiveLiterature detective story]], as well as an early influence on the [[SpeculativeFiction science fiction]] genre. [[http://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/philcomp.htm Poe believed that all stories should be short enough to be read in one sitting.]] He also believed that the perfect subject for poetry is the death of a beautiful young woman[[note]]To be precise, he thought it perfect because it married the "most poetical subject"-- Beauty-- with the "most poetical emotion"-- Melancholy.[[/note]] (which should tell you volumes about [[CreatorBreakdown his own love life]], not to mention the death of his mother and his adoptive mother at a young age). Poe's life was plagued by rifts with his adoptive father, deaths of numerous loved ones, and alcoholism. [[CreatorBreakdown Typical.]] He was also a noted CausticCritic, which undoubtedly earned him a few enemies and tarnished his reputation, despite the critical acclaim that he received.

* BizzaroEpisode: Some collections of Poe's short stories will include several essays he wrote in the fiction section. Some will either exclude them or give them their own section. In comparison to most of Poe's comical and horror stories and sketches some of these stand out as being different from the rest of the works. Some clearly were written in-character which would make fitting to put them in the fiction section but others are instead rather straight forward producing this feeling to the reader.

** "The Balloon-Hoax": a fictional short story written by Poe that was originally released as being a newspaper article of an actual event. He then showed up at the [[BigApplesauce place]] where the hot-air balloon was supposed to arrive and [[TheGadfly explained to everyone that he'd just fooled them all with his writing]]. It was a publicity stunt and it [[{{Trickster}} worked]].

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Contemporaries noted that Poe wasn't as gloomy or spooky as everyone thinks he was, and he often mocked his own persona.

* {{Asexuality}}: He had a wife, Virginia, but he supposedly loved her only platonically.
** It may have helped that she was his first cousin (and only thirteen at the time of their marriage), though the fact that he married and loved her, even knowing this, meant he would have been perfectly happy to never sleep with anyone for the rest of their lives together. So, [[{{Asexuality}} the shoe still fits]].

* AuthorAppeal: ''Dead women''.

** "Berenice"

* DepravedDwarf: Subverted in "Hop-Frog". The king and his courtiers who torment Hop-Frog and his beloved Trippetta are the depraved ones.

* FunetikAksent: [[EthnicScrappy Jupiter's]] "Negro dialect" is written this way in "The Gold Bug," with a little bit of [[AsianSpeekeeEngrish African Speekee Engrish]] and BuffySpeak as well.

* GrayEyes: He was said to have always-changing light grey eyes.
* HandicappedBadass: Hop-Frog may be a midget with deformed legs, but that doesn't stop him from getting his revenge.

* IllGirl: He was especially fond of this one. Incidentally, they tend to be [[EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette pale]] from sickness, but in a pretty way.
** Arguably TruthInTelevision; Poe's wife was ill for several years prior to her death, but he never saw her as anything less than beautiful.
*** Pretty much all of the women he loved became one of these, which also included his mother, his adoptive mother and his friend's mother.
* IncestIsRelative: Finally found love with his teenage cousin, though their love was [[{{Asexuality}} only ever platonic]]. He never had any children with her. Subverted in that under the laws of most lands, marrying one's cousin isn't incest; before widespread travel it was the rule rather than the exception.

* KissingCousins: Subverted. According to historians, his marriage with his cousin was [[LikeBrotherAndSister comparable to that of a pair of siblings.]]

* TheNounAndTheNoun

After Poe's death [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe#Griswold.27s_.22Memoir.22 his literary executor was also one of his greatest enemies in the literary world and sought to destroy Poe's reputation with lies and forgeries]]. ''The Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe'' by James Albert Harrison actually provides evidence from eyewitness accounts that suggest he wasn't quite an alcoholic at all. That said, even without it, he still had way more than enough "inspiration" for his work.

The [[TropeMakers inventor]] of the modern [[HorrorLiterature horror story]] and the modern [[DetectiveLiterature detective story]], as well as an early influence on the [[SpeculativeFiction science fiction]] genre. [[http://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/philcomp.htm Poe believed that all stories should be short enough to be read in one sitting.]] He also believed that the perfect subject for poetry is the death of a beautiful young woman[[note]]To be precise, he thought it perfect because it married the "most poetical subject"-- Beauty-- with the "most poetical emotion"-- Melancholy.[[/note]] (which should tell you volumes about [[CreatorBreakdown his own love life]], not to mention the death of his mother and his adoptive mother at a young age). Poe's life was plagued by rifts with his adoptive father, deaths of numerous loved ones, and alcoholism. [[CreatorBreakdown Typical.]] He was also a noted CausticCritic, which undoubtedly earned him a few enemies and tarnished his reputation, despite the critical acclaim that he received.

->"''Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?''"

* DrugsAreBad: Well, alcohol is bad, in the sense that it's used to set up misdeeds in "The Black Cat" and "Hop-Frog." Poe was generally realistic about it, thanks in part to personal experience. Maybe.

* StalkerWithoutACrush: In "The Man in the Crowd" (1840), the narrator, sitting in a London coffee shop and observing the people rushing by, is intrigued by a lone old man who wears ragged but formerly expensive clothes. Taken with the idea that there is some peculiar, possible terrible secret about the man, the narrator decides to follow the stranger in order to learn about him. After shadowing the man a whole night and part of the next day, without the man ever noticing he is being stalked, the narrator ends his chase after having realized (his only definite insight) that the man is persistently avoiding to be alone.

** "The Black Cat"