History Creator / EdgarAllanPoe

* IllGirl: Poe often featured this trope. Incidentally, they tend to be [[EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette pale]] from sickness, but in a pretty way.
** The titular ''Berenice'' has some sort of degenerative condition where she has fits of catalepsy.
** It's implied that Lenore was this.
** Eleonora as well.

* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Quite a few of Poe's stories have a recurring theme of young, beautiful, strong and intelligent women falling [[IllGirl terminally ill]], suffering a slow death and [[VictorianNovelDisease ultimately leaving their partners in deep depression]]. Many point to Poe's cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, whom he married when he was 27 and she was 13 and, according to sources, had a LikeBrotherAndSister relationship with, up until her death from tuberculosis at age 24, for being the inspiration for those.

He also created the first notable introverted GreatDetective character of C. Auguste Dupin who, operating independently of the police force, solved crimes via his great observation and reasoning skills while assisted by his {{Heterosexual Life Partner|s}} and roommate, who also narrates the stories. [[Franchise/SherlockHolmes Sound familiar?]]

[[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). After the death of his parents, he was taken in by a foster family and spent some of his childhood abroad, spending a couple of years in a boarding school in England before returning to America at the age of 11. After squandering his college tuition money gambling, he enlisted in the US Army at the age of 18. He published his first work, ''Tamerlane and Other Poems'', while serving as an artillery man at Fort Independence, Boston, Massachusetts. After securing an early discharge, he was accepted to the Military Academy at West Point, but gave up on it after a falling-out with his adoptive father, though he was popular enough that his fellow cadets chipped in enough money to help him publish another book of his poetry. Moving to New York, he became a full-time writer, and struggled financially for the rest of his short life until his death in Baltimore, Maryland at age 40.

* UnreliableNarrator: Poe practically ''created'' the trope, at least in traditional Western literature.

* IncestIsRelative: In ''Berenice'', this can be assumed to be the reason for Egaeus' (her cousin) obsession with her.

* MonsterClown: Hop-Frog was the king's court jester until he had it with the poor treatment he and his friend Trippetta had been receiving and dresses eight people as [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys orangutans]] for an upcoming MasqueradeBall and lit them [[ManOnFire on]] [[KillItWithFire fire]] as an "act", all for {{Revenge}}.

[[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). After the death of his parents, he was taken in by a foster family and spent some of his childhood abroad, spending a couple of years in a boarding school in England before returning to America at the age of 11. After squandering his college tuition money gambling, he enlisted in the US Army at the age of 18. He published his first work, ''Tamerlane and Other Poems'', while serving as an artillery man at Fort Independence, Boston, Massachusetts. After securing an early discharge, he went was accepted to the Military Academy at West Point, but gave up on it after a falling-out with his adoptive father, though he was popular enough that his fellow cadets chipped in enough money to help him publish another book of his poetry. Moving to New York, he became a full-time writer, and struggled financially for the rest of his short life until his death in Baltimore, Maryland at age 40.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/edgar_allan_poe_portrait_3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:The world's most famous daguerreotype.]]

[[quoteright:160:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Edgar_Allan_Poe_7503.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:160:The world's most famous daguerreotype]]

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). After the death of his parents, he was taken in by a foster family and spent some of his childhood abroad, spending a couple of years in a boarding school in England before returning to America at the age of 11. After squandering his college tuition money gambling, he enlisted in the US Army at the age of 18. He published his first work, ''Tamerlane and Other Poems'', while serving as an artillery man at Fort Independence, Boston, Massachusetts. After securing an early discharge, he went was accepted to the Military Academy at West Point, but gave up on it after a falling-out with his adoptive father, though he was popular enough that his fellow cadets chipped in enough money to help him publish another book of his poetry. Moving to New York, he became a full-time writer, and struggled financially for the rest of his short life until his death at age 40.

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). After the death of his parents, he was taken in by a foster family and spent some of his childhood abroad, spending a couple of years in a boarding school in England before returning to America at the age of 11. After squandering his college tuition money gambling, he enlisted in the US Army at the age of 18. He published his first work, ''Tamerlane and Other Poems'', while serving as an artillery man at Fort Independence, Boston, Massachusetts. After securing an early discharge, he went was accepted to the Military Academy at West Point, but gave up on it after discovering that his adoptive father had

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 earned him a few enemies and tarnished his reputation, despite the critical acclaim that he received.

* FeudingFamilies: The Metzengersteins and the Berliftzings in "Metzengerstein," due to an ambiguous prophecy that one of them would eventually destroy the other.

* ProphecyTwist: "Metzengerstein" predicts that one family will destroy the other when "like the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berliftzing." It comes to pass when the dead Count Berliftzing, apparently reincarnated as a horse, carries the living Baron Metzengerstein into a fire.

* ''Literature/TheBlackCat''
* ''Literature/TheCaskOfAmontillado''

* ''Literature/TheFallOfTheHouseOfUsher''
* ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath''

* ''Literature/ThePitAndThePendulum''
* ''Literature/TheRaven''
* ''Literature/TheTellTaleHeart''
* ''Literature/WilliamWilson''

* TheCakeIsALie: "Eldorado". A knight spends his whole life searching for the mystical golden city, only to meet [[TheGrimReaper Death]] when he's an old man, who tells him that Eldorado is located in the land of the dead; so he must die to reach it, and by that point he won't be able to reap any rewards.

* CampbellCountry