Edgar Allen Poe (1809 - 1849) Introduction Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809, Poe was orphaned in his early childhood and was raised by John Allan, a successful businessman of Richmond, Virginia. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, Poe was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the United States in 1820, he continued to study in private schools. He attended the University of Virginia for a year, but in 1827 his foster …showed first 75 words of 973 total…

…showed last 75 words of 973 total…societies to do themselves harm. Poe knew that, alone, rationality is a severe limitation to thought. Though he employed rational thought in his own discourse, he infused it with his imaginative and intuitive genius. It is in this shear amount of extreme writing that we see the effect of substances on Poe’s intellect, the main factor in the creative intellect of Poe was not psychoactive compounds, it was his own eccentric and unstable mind.