=Biography.= Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was the greatest poet and short story writer the South has produced. His parents belonged by profession to the stage; his mother was English and his father American by birth. Born in Boston, he was left an orphan at an early age, and was adopted by a Mr. Allan, a wealthy citizen of Richmond, Virginia. Poe was sent to school in London, and later he attended the University of Virginia, and the military academy at West Point. Mr. Allan lavished money and other inducements upon him in vain efforts to get him to settle down to a permanent profession, but finally abandoned him to his own resources. From that time on, Poe eked out a living by publishing poems and tales, by contributions to newspapers and magazines, and by editorial work. But he was too erratic in his habits to retain long either positions or friends. His writings, like his character, were weird, mysterious, haunted by brooding melancholy. But his poetry is perhaps the most purely musical of any in our language—for Poe believed that poetry should be the language of the feelings rather than of thought, and that it should therefore seek to produce its effects through “harmony of sweet sounds” rather than through the meaning of its lines. His prose tales of mystery and adventure are remarkable for their imaginative and poetic style; they have served as models for many well known writers. Poe was the originator of the modern short story. Poe’s erratic, troubled life ended at Baltimore, in 1849, in the fortieth year of his age. The pathos of it is well summed up in the inscription on a memorial tablet erected to him in the New York Museum of Art: “He was great in his genius, unhappy in his life, wretched in his death, but in his fame, immortal.”