aelstroem.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809, and
died in Baltimore, October 7, 1849. His father, David Poe,
while a law student in Baltimore, married Elizabeth Arnold,
a beautiful English actress, and went on the stage himself.
Several years later both died within a few weeks of each
other, leaving three children, of whom Edgar was the second.
Impressed by the boy's extraordinary beauty and
intelligence, John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond,
adopted him.

Poe was then sent to England to be educated. There he spent
five or six years in a school at Stoke Newington.
Subsequently he was sent to the University of Virginia and
to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but
remained only a few months at each institution. Finally he
quarreled with Mr. Allan, who died shortly afterward; and
Edgar was not mentioned in the will.

In 1833 the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_ offered two prizes
of a hundred dollars each for a story and a poem. Poe won
both. This led to his employment in various editorial
capacities in Richmond and New York. Quarrels with his
employers usually resulted in his dismissal. During this
period he was distinguished by an extraordinary degree of
literary activity, however, and it was not long before he
was recognized as one of the most forceful figures in
American literature.

Scores of authors have found inspiration in the pages of
Edgar Allan Poe. Sardou, the celebrated French dramatist,
founded the main incident of his "Scrap of Paper" on Poe's
"The Purloined Letter," and Conan Doyle has admitted that
_Dupin_, the detective who appears in several of Poe's
tales, was the prototype of _Sherlock Holmes_. "A Descent
Into the Maelstroem" is generally regarded as one of the most
representative of his stories.

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the
old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this
route as well as the youngest of my sons; but about three years past there
happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man--or at
least such as no man ever survived to tell of--and the six hours of deadly
terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul.

"You suppose me a very old man, but I