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Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe
Over 170 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a figure of enduring fascination and speculation for readers, scholars, and devotees of the weird and macabre. Fallen Angel offers a new biography of this gifted, complicated author.
Focusing on Poe’s personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores.
Focusing on Poe’s personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores.
- GenresBiography
400 pages, Hardcover
Published November 15, 2023
About the author
Robert Morgan
308 books414 followersRobert Morgan is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 13, 2024
Although I haven't paid any attention to Poe since I was in school, this caught my eye at the library, partly because I live in Baltimore.
Morgan states early in the book, "he reawakens the grief and yearning of adolescent love in many of his readers." There is a lot of truth in that - it was only in my teen years that I loved his stories. Part of the reason for it seems to be that Poe was an adolescent his whole life when it came to relationships. I think today he might be diagnosed as bipolar, given how he repeatedly destroyed his relationships and his employment and his social connections, and would alternate between periods of extreme productivity and complete crashes.
Morgan treats Poe with more sympathy than sometimes appears deserved. He never recovered from the loss of his parents, especially his mother, as a small child, and in Morgan's slightly Freudian telling he was both pursuing and fleeing from the idea of replacing his mother in his life. Despite his alcoholism, I'm convinced by the argument that he died of tubercular encephalitis. Given how oddly he was juggling 3 or 4 women in the last year of his life, it appeared his brain was beginning to unravel.
I won't be revisiting Poe, although I remember Ligeia and Morella very well, but it was interesting to read a modern reassessment of his work, although I can't say whether I agree with statements of his greatness as a critic, as they were mostly asserted without being demonstrated.
Morgan states early in the book, "he reawakens the grief and yearning of adolescent love in many of his readers." There is a lot of truth in that - it was only in my teen years that I loved his stories. Part of the reason for it seems to be that Poe was an adolescent his whole life when it came to relationships. I think today he might be diagnosed as bipolar, given how he repeatedly destroyed his relationships and his employment and his social connections, and would alternate between periods of extreme productivity and complete crashes.
Morgan treats Poe with more sympathy than sometimes appears deserved. He never recovered from the loss of his parents, especially his mother, as a small child, and in Morgan's slightly Freudian telling he was both pursuing and fleeing from the idea of replacing his mother in his life. Despite his alcoholism, I'm convinced by the argument that he died of tubercular encephalitis. Given how oddly he was juggling 3 or 4 women in the last year of his life, it appeared his brain was beginning to unravel.
I won't be revisiting Poe, although I remember Ligeia and Morella very well, but it was interesting to read a modern reassessment of his work, although I can't say whether I agree with statements of his greatness as a critic, as they were mostly asserted without being demonstrated.
March 22, 2025
This was a fair biography of Poe, written through the lens of his relationships with women. Always a hot topic for Poe biography!
June 10, 2024
A real gem. Mr Morgan is a learned and enthusiastic Poe scholar. His zeal is a boon for a reader (such as myself) who respects, maybe appreciates, but doesn’t quite get Poe. Knowledgeable analysis and context open a whole world to the ignorant.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews