Book 54: Poe: A Life Cut Short.
Author: Peter Ackroyd, 2008.
Genre: Biography. Literature History.
Other details: London: Chatto & Windus, 170 pages.

I sought out this book after reading brisingamen's recent review. As she had provided a very comprehensive summary of its contents, I won't repeat here but direct others to her review and only share my thoughts on it below.

I hadn't really been aware of the details of Poe's life before reading this short biography. As with other of Ackroyd's 'Brief Lives' series he manages to provide a comprehensive life sketch without becoming so bogged down in the minutia of the subject's life that it became boring for the casual reader. Poe enthusiasts probably wanted more but there are undoubtedly many longer biographies existing that fulfil this need.

I came away from this biography feeling much as brisingamen had. That is, some surprise that Edgar Allan Poe had managed to survive to the age of 40. Yet with Melancholia as his Muse perhaps this was to be expected. I had to wonder if he had not been so tormented would he have burned so bright? Without those inner demons that led him to drink himself into oblivion he might not have made the impact he subsequently did upon literature and other arts. His personality and the themes of his works seem so wedded together that his name has become synonymous with the macabre and gothic.

Aside from the biographical aspects, Ackroyd briefly explores the impact Poe had upon other writers; being hailed by Arthur Conan Doyle as the 'Father' of the detective story and cited by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as an important influence upon their writings. Due to my studies in art history I was already aware that the French poet, Charles Baudelaire, was obsessed with Poe and that Stéphane Mallarmé held his poetry in high esteem. Poe's engagement with themes of love, death, melancholia and decadence made him perfect to be hailed as a prophet by the Symbolists and also embraced by the Surrealists. I found it poignant that Ackroyd pointed out that it was in these later writers and thinkers, who recognised Poe's genius and were inspired by his writings, that he had at last found his true family.

A worthwhile read though slightly disappointed that while it did have a bibliography that there were no footnotes. Still as it was marketed as a popular biography and not an academic work this is understandable. Overall I found that I was more interested in the influence of Poe's writings than in his life and so have requested a copy of The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe from my local library.