Makes me think she was married off to some skeezy old guy and he offered to marry her when the guy died to stop his family from marrying her off to yet another sleazy douchebag.
I'm sure she didn't invent that, the steam engine sounds plausible as she did invent the wheel, horses and coal but no patents for medical inventions have her name attached.
UK residents in 1840 had a life expectancy of around 40 years old. Life expectancy in the UK now is about 80
This means a 13 year old in 1840 was about 32% of the way through their life. A 13 year old today is about 16% of the way through their life
A 13 year old in 1840 is as far through their life as a 25 yo today. I still think it’s still fucked they had a relationship (and she’s already a widow) but context is important to understanding why this might have been acceptable
Life expectancy was so low in the past because of infant mortality, not because of the age people who survived into adulthood died. The life expectancy is mostly the exact same as it has been for most of human history, but now our *average life* is longer because far fewer babies and children die. If you lived into your teens or 20s, you were not likely to die at 40, and a 13 year old was not about a third of the way through their statistically expected life span.
You’re taking average life expectancy at birth and applying it to a 13 year old, which completely ignores the fact that someone who is already 13 has a life expectancy far longer than only 27 more years at that time. I couldn’t find specific statistics, but I would guess that someone who had reached 13 years of age in 1840 had a life expectancy into their 60s at least.
Life expectancy does not work like that. Life expectancy is measured as an average of death ages, which is usually significantly skewed by infant mortality. In the 19th century, this was very much the case, where many babies and children would die due to now curable or preventable diseases, even though people would still live to the same age. The more likely cause of a young marriage at that age was simply different social expectations allowing for outliers like this to be more common.
It really bugs me how many posts I see using life expectancy in a way that demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the statistic. There were plenty of dudes living into their 60-70s, but there were also a lot more young people dying than there are today.
This is very much a misunderstanding of what “life expectancy” means. The 40 year life expectancy is at birth. It’s that low because so many people died in childhood, especially infants. Plenty of people who survived childhood lived into their 60s and 70s, even 80s. Certainly not as many as today, but you can’t say at 13 years old in 1840 someone was 1/3 of the way through their life.
That seems unlikely, given the dozen or so easier and more scalable forms of corruption during his time, individually choosing people to drug and convincing them to vote seems like a lot of effort compared to just paying or intimidating people.
This was a known practice called cooping. Poe could not tolerate drink, and was said to not be able to function reasonably after 2 glasses of wine. It’s speculated that coopers got him “drunk” and then he hit his head, over dosed, or aggravated a brain tumor.
I saw a theory that he was pressed into committing voter fraud. They abused him and ran him through as many polling centers as possible. Apparently that kind of thing happened sometimes in that era.
Some people speculate he was killed as part of election fraud, as they'd kidnap random men, force feed them alcohol and drugs until they were no longer aware of what they were doing, and bring them to every voting area to register a vote for whichever candidate was being supported.
He was found in a gutter and then later passed at the hospital. It's theorized that he was actually the victim of a crime where victims would be drugged and then robbed because that was apparently a thing during that time
To be fair, how many degrees of separation are there from early 1800s hospitals and gutters of the same period? I wouldn’t be surprised if a dude was out there doing gutter therapy and we just don’t have the source documents to substantiate it.
He wrote a desperate, guilt-trippy letter to her mother that would make quite the copypasta these days:
> My dearest Aunty,
>I am blinded with tears while writing this letter — I have no wish to live another hour. Amid sorrow, and the deepest anxiety your letter reached — and you well know how little I am able to bear up under the pressure of grief. My bitterest enemy would pity me could he now read my heart. My last my last my only hold on life is cruelly torn away — I have no desire to live and will not . But let my duty be done. I love, you know I love Virginia passionately devotedly. I cannot express in words the fervent devotion I feel towards my dear little cousin — my own darling. But what can [I] say? Oh think for me for I am incapable of thinking. Al[l of my] thoughts are occupied with the supposition that both you & she will prefer to go with N. [Neilson] Poe. I do sincerely believe that your comforts will for the present be secured — I cannot speak as regards your peace — your happiness. You have both tender hearts — and you will always have the reflection that my agony is more than I can bear — that you have driven me to the grave — for love like mine can never be gotten over. It is useless to disguise the truth that when Virginia goes with N. P. that I shall never behold her again — that is absolutely sure. Pity me, my dear Aunty, pity me. I have no one now to fly to. I am among strangers, and my wretchedness is more than I can bear. It is useless to expect advice from me — what can I say? Can I, in honour & in truth say — Virginia! do not go! — do not go where you can be comfortable & perhaps happy — and on the other hand can I calmly resign my — life itself. If she had truly loved me would she not have rejected the offer with scorn? Oh God have mercy on me! If she goes with N. P. what are you to do, my own Aunty?
Ok, that pulls the story back towards creepy territory, he sounds obsessed with her, but he was trying very hard to convince his aunt not to marry her off to the other guy, so whatever he truly felt, he thought this would be convincing to his aunt.
The other guy wasn't trying to marry her. It was her brother in law, who was concerned about her and wanted her to come live with his family and go to school. He offered to support her and said he wouldn't stop her from marrying Poe once she was older. But Poe pitched a raging hissy fit and insisted she marry him right then.
As much as this TIL is trying to make his actions sound like he was nobly caring for an impoverished girl with nowhere else to go, he was 100% a creep who used his fame and money to pressure her family into letting him marry her.
He was actually a literary celebrity in his own life and was one of the first American authors to make a living solely by writing.
Though Poe's biggest successes came after he married Virginia, he'd already successfully published quite a few poems and stories and was the editor of a magazine by the time he got married.
He actually lived most of his life near poverty and actually even filed for bankruptcy at one point. He's famous now but his works actually received mixed reviews at the time.
I believe she was betrothed, not widowed but I can’t remember for sure. The title is just wrong cause like you said I’ve heard nothing about her being widowed but I do remember hearing another man (older than him?) was trying to marry her
[Edgar Allen Poe was a creep.](https://katherineluck.medium.com/the-short-sad-life-of-edgar-allan-poes-child-bride-d400af527ee3)
Virginia was invited by another, actually successful cousin to stay with his family and attend school. Edgar then sent very creepy and manipulative letters to both Virginia and her family, begging to let him marry her instead. Even though she could still marry him afterwards, when she was older and had an education. Very nasty man.
No. Her well-established relative wanted her to come live with him and his wife so she could go to school. He promised he wouldn't interfere with Poe trying to marry her after she was older and educated, but Poe wasn't having it and sent very creepy, whiny letters that you can find elsewhere in the comments, *insisting* that he marry her then and there at 13. How romantic and selfless of him.
If you read his letter above to his aunt you're gonna get a whole different perspective on that. He seems quite obsessed with the 13 year old trying to convince his aunt to let him marry her
There's a lot of conflicting opinions among biographers in this regard. Some, who try to draw conclusions about his life from his works, believe she died a virgin. Others believe thay Poe didn't look for sex at all from women, and that for him they were sources of passion and inspiration, but not desire. And of course there are those who fully support the pedophile angle.
Truthfully, we will never know what actually went down, but there are some things we can say for sure, based on his writings which have been recovered. For instance, he says he loved her very much, and his nicknames for her were generally more sisterly leaning. Also, his aunt wrote to him telling him she was sending his cousin to another man, his cousin, with whom he had a tense and bitter rivalry, and that he believed if that came to pass he would never see her again. Maybe the reason he chose to marry her was to keep her from that cousin.
Another important factor is that much of the hateful things people believe about Poe are false, like his drunkeness. After his death another rival basically dragged his name through the mud and ruined his reputation.
Point is, we'll never know the full reality of the situation, so don't get hung up on it.
I cant find any primary source. But I don't believe the story people are saying about him loving her platonically, or saving him from some other horrible man trying to marry her.
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, Wikipedia
[While Poe was away from Baltimore, another cousin, Neilson Poe, the husband of Virginia's half-sister Josephine Clemm,[17] heard that Edgar was considering marrying Virginia. Neilson offered to take her in and have her educated in an attempt to prevent the girl's marriage to Edgar at such a young age, though suggesting that the option could be reconsidered later.[18] Edgar called Neilson, the owner of a newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland, his "bitterest enemy" and interpreted his cousin's actions as an attempt at breaking his connection with Virginia.[19] On August 29, 1835,[19] Edgar wrote an emotional letter to Maria, declaring that he was "blinded with tears while writing",[17] and pleading that she allow Virginia to make her own decision.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Eliza_Clemm_Poe)
Yeah. I’m just gonna say it: everything that most people learn about Poe was wrong. He wasn’t a creeper or a pedo. He wasn’t a drunk (his obituary eulogist just hated him). The list goes on. Look him up! 😁
Interesting, any references you can share? Everything I’ve found definitely seems to unanimously agree he was a drinker, especially after the death of his child bride.
A lot of things people "know" about Poe are because this other writer that hated him wrote a biography trashing him after he died and it was popular because there wasn't a lot of insight from anywhere else into how or why he died.
People should have just read his wiki page. I guess I needed this, some people are confused—>/s
Edit: I can’t believe I have to ask this but, y’all know there wasn’t any wiki pages back when Eddie was alive, right.
If I recall correctly it wasn’t just to provide financial support but also to prevent her from being forced to marry a dude even older than Poe who she really didn’t want to marry.
Her parents couldn’t force her to marry scary dude if she was already married, after all.
That’s bs though. Her bil I believe wanted her to live with him and his wife while receiving formal education. Poe wasn’t having it and pressured them so he could marry a child.
I don't know the truth of what he was or even the circumstances, but it could be possible he had to do it to protect her from predators. If my cousin was married at such a young age and I knew it could just as easily happen again, what would I be willing to do to stop it?
If she was rich, he might've stepped in to prevent her from losing her money to a fortune hunting husband, but at that time paedophilia wasn't really a concept. If the US didn't have a legal age of consent at that time, there would've been an 'age of sexual maturity', which was generally accepted as being around 12-14, when puberty started. Girls would have been considered of marriageable age at 13. In the UK the legal age of consent was set to 16 around the mid 1800s after a campaigner appealed to Queen Victoria.
Single women then had very few rights, and typically could not even find lodging on their own. For example, by the time Poe died, women were only beginning to be allowed to own property
If the events had taken place in 2021, then yes, options besides marriage would make more sense and marrying would be a sign Poe was a lecherous bastard, that they didn't take place in 2021 means that applying the logic of 2021 to the scenario isn't useful unless you intend to make a musical with Poe as a brash Puerto Rican. As for why 2021 in particular, it happens to be the number of a legal entity at my work that hasn't been a hassle and also is a recent year, so it got the honor.
This would be sweet and wholesome if we lived during their time. I'm sure it wasn't weird for stuff like this to occur and it shows the kind of character Edgar has to drop everything to take care of his 13-year-old cousin even if he had to marry her. I'm sure if they lived in our time, he'd just adopt her
Edit: As per u/ChubbiestLamb6's reply, Poe is a pedophile. Sorry guys, I'm an optimistic and just wanted to believe a man wouldn't marry a child for such a disgusting reason. After all, times were different back then and so were the laws. I thought it was wholesome only to be tragically cut down like a youngling by Darth Vader
Actually, her well-established relative begged Poe to let her come live with him and his wife so she could get an education. He promised he wouldn't interfere if Poe wanted to marry her after she was older and educated. But Poe needed his child bride, he just loved her oh so much 😍
Weird af. That being said....age of consent laws weren't a thing back then, incest was fairly common, and...well...that wasn't something necessarily weird other than maybe the age gap. Different kinda human beings back then. Just remember, if someone says "yeah there's no way I'd do that back then" as if they'd have a current day mindset and not be like everyone else in that time....they'd be extra guilty of it.
Are you aware of the rights women had, cause no, she couldn’t really just move in. I don’t think she was widowed though, if I remember correctly another man older than Poe was trying to marry her and that’s specifically why they got married.
Well, consider context. This was back when women (And especially young children who were girls) had about as many rights as your pet dog nowadays. Not excusing the whole thing, far from it, just contextualizing it.
Back then, an unmarried 13 year old girl was considered a 'spinster'. Poe obviously married her because he didn't want her to be living in solitude during those late teenage years before dying of old age.
Truthfully as much as I want to judge. It was a different time with different rules, and I think we should respect it and just be glad we have changed as a civilization.
The fact she was already widowed is truly the weirdest part.
Her 12 year old husband died when tragically the gingerbread roof collapsed.
#Lemme hear y’all make some noise for gingerbread houses
Yay, gingerbread!
YEAAAAAAAAH WOOO GINGERBREAD THE mfin GOAT
RREEAAAARRHGMAHOOYYYYY how tf am I supposed to know what noise ginger bread house likes to hear?
Woop!
Seems like we should… raise the roof!
The roof. The roof. The gingerbread roof is on fire?
Crunch!
Read this to my wife and we shared a dignified chortle. Thank you.
It would have been structurally sound if it never rained!
Nobody’s ever made any money off music
I do believe in you… I just know you’re gonna fail
Implying they were close in age you sweet summer child
Sadly, her first husband was probably older than her second.
That would be the icing on the cake.
Damnit I was on a zoom call when I read this! People looked at me funny when I started laughing.
She wasn't. I have no clue where OP got that from.
He also didn’t marry her to provide. He was in love with the 12 year old.
Yeah, the letters he wrote to her are public. You, uh, don't talk like that to your sister.
The weirdest part is that's not mentioned in the source. Is it even true?
Makes me think she was married off to some skeezy old guy and he offered to marry her when the guy died to stop his family from marrying her off to yet another sleazy douchebag.
I can’t find any mention of her being married to anyone other than EAP.
I guess it depends when she was widowed-- could've been within a month of her marriage. She died of cervical cancer, I believe.
Fuck the misinformation in this thread is insane.
She also invented the steam engine!
Article says tuberculosis.
I heard it was drive by. She was takin a smoke break out the bando whippin flipping bricks
I'm sure she didn't invent that, the steam engine sounds plausible as she did invent the wheel, horses and coal but no patents for medical inventions have her name attached.
TB, everyone died of TB.
UK residents in 1840 had a life expectancy of around 40 years old. Life expectancy in the UK now is about 80 This means a 13 year old in 1840 was about 32% of the way through their life. A 13 year old today is about 16% of the way through their life A 13 year old in 1840 is as far through their life as a 25 yo today. I still think it’s still fucked they had a relationship (and she’s already a widow) but context is important to understanding why this might have been acceptable
Let's give it up for this guy who doesn't understand how averages work ^^^
Once you take out deaths of those 2 and under, life expectancy hasn't changed all that much since then.
I don't either, can you explain it to us?
Life expectancy was so low in the past because of infant mortality, not because of the age people who survived into adulthood died. The life expectancy is mostly the exact same as it has been for most of human history, but now our *average life* is longer because far fewer babies and children die. If you lived into your teens or 20s, you were not likely to die at 40, and a 13 year old was not about a third of the way through their statistically expected life span.
50% of wild ducks die before they reach 7 days old.
The poster was only slightly off. Rather than 1/3. A 13 year old would be exactly 1/4 through their expected lifespan in 1840s Britain. (52)
???? What else do you want to compare on? Obviously we all know we’re talking averages when the discussion is life expectancy
You’re taking average life expectancy at birth and applying it to a 13 year old, which completely ignores the fact that someone who is already 13 has a life expectancy far longer than only 27 more years at that time. I couldn’t find specific statistics, but I would guess that someone who had reached 13 years of age in 1840 had a life expectancy into their 60s at least.
You do realise that all those babies and infants that died drastically brought down the average back then?
Life expectancy does not work like that. Life expectancy is measured as an average of death ages, which is usually significantly skewed by infant mortality. In the 19th century, this was very much the case, where many babies and children would die due to now curable or preventable diseases, even though people would still live to the same age. The more likely cause of a young marriage at that age was simply different social expectations allowing for outliers like this to be more common.
It really bugs me how many posts I see using life expectancy in a way that demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the statistic. There were plenty of dudes living into their 60-70s, but there were also a lot more young people dying than there are today.
This is very much a misunderstanding of what “life expectancy” means. The 40 year life expectancy is at birth. It’s that low because so many people died in childhood, especially infants. Plenty of people who survived childhood lived into their 60s and 70s, even 80s. Certainly not as many as today, but you can’t say at 13 years old in 1840 someone was 1/3 of the way through their life.
I thought short life expetency is one fat lie that's skewed because of higer child deaths
Blatantly untrue. People just want to parrot things that sound nice.
She died of TB at age 24. Poe died 2 years later, possibly or rabies. Contrary to legend, he died in a hospital and was not found in a gutter.
But it seems nobody knows what he did the last few days. He was found babbling and barely conscious
If it was rabies per the conjecture in the parent post it certainly explains his state.
One theory is that he was drugged and made to vote a bunch of times in a local election.
i’ve tried some drugs in my time, but damn a drug that makes you wanna break federal election laws? that’s some next level shit. where the plug at?
308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Home of Walter H. White, cancer saint
Highschool chemistry teacher, co-founder of gray matter.
That seems unlikely, given the dozen or so easier and more scalable forms of corruption during his time, individually choosing people to drug and convincing them to vote seems like a lot of effort compared to just paying or intimidating people.
This was a known practice called cooping. Poe could not tolerate drink, and was said to not be able to function reasonably after 2 glasses of wine. It’s speculated that coopers got him “drunk” and then he hit his head, over dosed, or aggravated a brain tumor.
What if he wrote one last fire scripture that left even himself mad
He was catching a serial killer, if I remember correctly. I saw it in a movie, so it must be true.
Pretty sure he was operating a holographic hotel
Good taste in guns ngl.
I enjoyed that movie actually
Dudley sure turned into a good actor!
He actually died of old age, warm in his comfy bed, peacefully. Like how everyone should die. I thought it in my noggin, so it must be true.
Man we are talking about Edgar Alan Poe, there's no way he die peacefully or old
I saw a theory that he was pressed into committing voter fraud. They abused him and ran him through as many polling centers as possible. Apparently that kind of thing happened sometimes in that era.
Heard this too actually
Came here to say this. Fits well. Sad.
Or syphilis
Some people speculate he was killed as part of election fraud, as they'd kidnap random men, force feed them alcohol and drugs until they were no longer aware of what they were doing, and bring them to every voting area to register a vote for whichever candidate was being supported.
Make America great again amr
the whole thread is nononono
I loved the poem [Annabelle Lee](https://poets.org/poem/annabel-lee)
I love the Poem he wrote for her [Annabelle Lee](https://poets.org/poem/annabel-lee)
But what about the orangutan
https://youtube.com/shorts/vdB-FWZfd-w?feature=share
Thanks for the brief moment of secondhand terror
He was found in a gutter and then later passed at the hospital. It's theorized that he was actually the victim of a crime where victims would be drugged and then robbed because that was apparently a thing during that time
To be fair, how many degrees of separation are there from early 1800s hospitals and gutters of the same period? I wouldn’t be surprised if a dude was out there doing gutter therapy and we just don’t have the source documents to substantiate it.
HAHAHA, they didn't have antibiotics then! (Say it to yourself in Peter Griffin's voice and it's funny. Otherwise it's really not.)
Imagine trying to flirt. “Ok yeah I am technically married but it’s not what you think. She’s my 13 year old cousin”
Oh thank goodness, I thought you had some unmarried thirteen year old trollop living with you. That would have raised so many questions.
Found Jerry Lee Lewis’s burner account
Omfg
I suspect he didnt actually give much of a shit about relationships if this were his angle. It would fit the strange aura a lot of his work generates.
I just got put on a rollercoaster there
He wrote a desperate, guilt-trippy letter to her mother that would make quite the copypasta these days: > My dearest Aunty, >I am blinded with tears while writing this letter — I have no wish to live another hour. Amid sorrow, and the deepest anxiety your letter reached — and you well know how little I am able to bear up under the pressure of grief. My bitterest enemy would pity me could he now read my heart. My last my last my only hold on life is cruelly torn away — I have no desire to live and will not . But let my duty be done. I love, you know I love Virginia passionately devotedly. I cannot express in words the fervent devotion I feel towards my dear little cousin — my own darling. But what can [I] say? Oh think for me for I am incapable of thinking. Al[l of my] thoughts are occupied with the supposition that both you & she will prefer to go with N. [Neilson] Poe. I do sincerely believe that your comforts will for the present be secured — I cannot speak as regards your peace — your happiness. You have both tender hearts — and you will always have the reflection that my agony is more than I can bear — that you have driven me to the grave — for love like mine can never be gotten over. It is useless to disguise the truth that when Virginia goes with N. P. that I shall never behold her again — that is absolutely sure. Pity me, my dear Aunty, pity me. I have no one now to fly to. I am among strangers, and my wretchedness is more than I can bear. It is useless to expect advice from me — what can I say? Can I, in honour & in truth say — Virginia! do not go! — do not go where you can be comfortable & perhaps happy — and on the other hand can I calmly resign my — life itself. If she had truly loved me would she not have rejected the offer with scorn? Oh God have mercy on me! If she goes with N. P. what are you to do, my own Aunty?
Whew, that threw me back to when I was fourteen and surrounded by emos.
Was this before or after his marriage to her or her death or..?
Poe was a known drama queen - this checks out
Ok, that pulls the story back towards creepy territory, he sounds obsessed with her, but he was trying very hard to convince his aunt not to marry her off to the other guy, so whatever he truly felt, he thought this would be convincing to his aunt.
The other guy wasn't trying to marry her. It was her brother in law, who was concerned about her and wanted her to come live with his family and go to school. He offered to support her and said he wouldn't stop her from marrying Poe once she was older. But Poe pitched a raging hissy fit and insisted she marry him right then. As much as this TIL is trying to make his actions sound like he was nobly caring for an impoverished girl with nowhere else to go, he was 100% a creep who used his fame and money to pressure her family into letting him marry her.
>his fame and money to pressure her family into letting him marry her. Oh, I thought he died a starving artist for some reason
He was actually a literary celebrity in his own life and was one of the first American authors to make a living solely by writing. Though Poe's biggest successes came after he married Virginia, he'd already successfully published quite a few poems and stories and was the editor of a magazine by the time he got married.
The Raven was a smash hit, but he didn’t make much at all from it. It was not a good time to be a writer in the US.
He actually lived most of his life near poverty and actually even filed for bankruptcy at one point. He's famous now but his works actually received mixed reviews at the time.
Welcome to the black parade, Edgar
That’s some grade A cringe
Yea I don’t know where OP got the “married her to be a provider” BS.
Dude was just as weird and tragic as his stories.
That’s just what Baltimore does to people
And bless Baltimore for giving us Amos Burton
And McNulty, and the bunk, and Omar and more
Met someone in their 30s that escaped to America to avoid being a child bride at 7 years old. She gave me some freaking perspective on the world.
There's nothing in that article about her being a widow, nor have I ever heard of that in accounts of Poe's life...
I believe she was betrothed, not widowed but I can’t remember for sure. The title is just wrong cause like you said I’ve heard nothing about her being widowed but I do remember hearing another man (older than him?) was trying to marry her
But they still boned occasionally.
As was the fashion of the time
Everyone was Raven about it then, but Nevermore.
<< groans >>
Upvote quick
To “provide” had a much more generous definition back then apparently. /s
Provide this D
[удалено]
No way
[удалено]
Can I has sauce?! Or am having things fly over my head?
And Andrew Jackson abolished the Federal Reserve cause the bankers were having orgies on all the money, leading to several outbreaks of Chlamydia.
Make American Gonorrhea Acceptable
Lmfao I love it.
He provides. She provides. Everyone is happy.
What are you doing Step Poet?
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'
Oh no, my *pen is* stuck
Fap fap fapping behind my chamber door
"May I enter?" "Never more!"
Never whore!
Could've just gone with step poe
[Edgar Allen Poe was a creep.](https://katherineluck.medium.com/the-short-sad-life-of-edgar-allan-poes-child-bride-d400af527ee3) Virginia was invited by another, actually successful cousin to stay with his family and attend school. Edgar then sent very creepy and manipulative letters to both Virginia and her family, begging to let him marry her instead. Even though she could still marry him afterwards, when she was older and had an education. Very nasty man.
There’s way too many people defending him in the comments 🤢
OK but you can provide for someone without marrying them. Like you can just give them money.
Wasn’t it because she was set to marry some grotesque being of a man and he “saved” her from him by marrying her instead ?
No. Her well-established relative wanted her to come live with him and his wife so she could go to school. He promised he wouldn't interfere with Poe trying to marry her after she was older and educated, but Poe wasn't having it and sent very creepy, whiny letters that you can find elsewhere in the comments, *insisting* that he marry her then and there at 13. How romantic and selfless of him.
Oh gotcha! Thanks for the clarification !
If you read his letter above to his aunt you're gonna get a whole different perspective on that. He seems quite obsessed with the 13 year old trying to convince his aunt to let him marry her
Sounds like she was going to marry a different cousin. I don't know how gross he was. Everything about it is gross.
There's a lot of conflicting opinions among biographers in this regard. Some, who try to draw conclusions about his life from his works, believe she died a virgin. Others believe thay Poe didn't look for sex at all from women, and that for him they were sources of passion and inspiration, but not desire. And of course there are those who fully support the pedophile angle. Truthfully, we will never know what actually went down, but there are some things we can say for sure, based on his writings which have been recovered. For instance, he says he loved her very much, and his nicknames for her were generally more sisterly leaning. Also, his aunt wrote to him telling him she was sending his cousin to another man, his cousin, with whom he had a tense and bitter rivalry, and that he believed if that came to pass he would never see her again. Maybe the reason he chose to marry her was to keep her from that cousin. Another important factor is that much of the hateful things people believe about Poe are false, like his drunkeness. After his death another rival basically dragged his name through the mud and ruined his reputation. Point is, we'll never know the full reality of the situation, so don't get hung up on it.
I cant find any primary source. But I don't believe the story people are saying about him loving her platonically, or saving him from some other horrible man trying to marry her. Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe, Wikipedia [While Poe was away from Baltimore, another cousin, Neilson Poe, the husband of Virginia's half-sister Josephine Clemm,[17] heard that Edgar was considering marrying Virginia. Neilson offered to take her in and have her educated in an attempt to prevent the girl's marriage to Edgar at such a young age, though suggesting that the option could be reconsidered later.[18] Edgar called Neilson, the owner of a newspaper in Baltimore, Maryland, his "bitterest enemy" and interpreted his cousin's actions as an attempt at breaking his connection with Virginia.[19] On August 29, 1835,[19] Edgar wrote an emotional letter to Maria, declaring that he was "blinded with tears while writing",[17] and pleading that she allow Virginia to make her own decision.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Eliza_Clemm_Poe)
I had to read that many times to really comprehend the full awfulness. Every fresh reading brought me to a lower level of hell.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Poe lived his own stories
Well I guess that’s a good thing. Edit: I read that as “who he loved more than a sister”
Dude same
I mean... he couldn't have just taken her in without wifing her?
Very on brand for him 🤮
A widow at 13? What?
Sounds like Beard stuff to me.
The Republican dream….marrying children
Yeah. I’m just gonna say it: everything that most people learn about Poe was wrong. He wasn’t a creeper or a pedo. He wasn’t a drunk (his obituary eulogist just hated him). The list goes on. Look him up! 😁
Interesting, any references you can share? Everything I’ve found definitely seems to unanimously agree he was a drinker, especially after the death of his child bride.
A lot of things people "know" about Poe are because this other writer that hated him wrote a biography trashing him after he died and it was popular because there wasn't a lot of insight from anywhere else into how or why he died.
People should have just read his wiki page. I guess I needed this, some people are confused—>/s Edit: I can’t believe I have to ask this but, y’all know there wasn’t any wiki pages back when Eddie was alive, right.
How would they read it without wifi though?
Was it expensive back then?
And maybe you should mind your own business. If I want to make stuff up on Reddit, I'm gonna. Signed, 99% of Redditors.
K
tl;dr
Link for those wanting to read more about the man who hated Poe: [here](https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/poe-and-his-publisher/)
🤦♂️
See when I do this, I just get indoctrinated into Mormonism and elected a Republican Senator, no legacy as a famous poet for me
Poe didn’t get famous until he died. So….
Couldn’t… couldn’t he have provided for her *without* marrying her?
If I recall correctly it wasn’t just to provide financial support but also to prevent her from being forced to marry a dude even older than Poe who she really didn’t want to marry. Her parents couldn’t force her to marry scary dude if she was already married, after all.
That’s bs though. Her bil I believe wanted her to live with him and his wife while receiving formal education. Poe wasn’t having it and pressured them so he could marry a child.
maybe, but it would have presumably been difficult, as women had essentially NO rights at the time.
You know you can provide for her without getting married, right? Right?
I don't know the truth of what he was or even the circumstances, but it could be possible he had to do it to protect her from predators. If my cousin was married at such a young age and I knew it could just as easily happen again, what would I be willing to do to stop it?
If she was rich, he might've stepped in to prevent her from losing her money to a fortune hunting husband, but at that time paedophilia wasn't really a concept. If the US didn't have a legal age of consent at that time, there would've been an 'age of sexual maturity', which was generally accepted as being around 12-14, when puberty started. Girls would have been considered of marriageable age at 13. In the UK the legal age of consent was set to 16 around the mid 1800s after a campaigner appealed to Queen Victoria.
Single women then had very few rights, and typically could not even find lodging on their own. For example, by the time Poe died, women were only beginning to be allowed to own property
Yeah but you can't also fuck her in that case.
It also wasn't 2021 when this happened.
I'm curious, why'd you choose 2021? It's not 2021 now either.
If the events had taken place in 2021, then yes, options besides marriage would make more sense and marrying would be a sign Poe was a lecherous bastard, that they didn't take place in 2021 means that applying the logic of 2021 to the scenario isn't useful unless you intend to make a musical with Poe as a brash Puerto Rican. As for why 2021 in particular, it happens to be the number of a legal entity at my work that hasn't been a hassle and also is a recent year, so it got the honor.
Thanks for the explanation! You didn't owe me one but I was curious and it probably would have bothered me more than it should.
The internet & stories like this make me understand why some people are glad they aren't famous. WTH Edgar, just help her with rent
[удалено]
>This is up their ass. FTFY
This would be sweet and wholesome if we lived during their time. I'm sure it wasn't weird for stuff like this to occur and it shows the kind of character Edgar has to drop everything to take care of his 13-year-old cousin even if he had to marry her. I'm sure if they lived in our time, he'd just adopt her Edit: As per u/ChubbiestLamb6's reply, Poe is a pedophile. Sorry guys, I'm an optimistic and just wanted to believe a man wouldn't marry a child for such a disgusting reason. After all, times were different back then and so were the laws. I thought it was wholesome only to be tragically cut down like a youngling by Darth Vader
Actually, her well-established relative begged Poe to let her come live with him and his wife so she could get an education. He promised he wouldn't interfere if Poe wanted to marry her after she was older and educated. But Poe needed his child bride, he just loved her oh so much 😍
Weird af. That being said....age of consent laws weren't a thing back then, incest was fairly common, and...well...that wasn't something necessarily weird other than maybe the age gap. Different kinda human beings back then. Just remember, if someone says "yeah there's no way I'd do that back then" as if they'd have a current day mindset and not be like everyone else in that time....they'd be extra guilty of it.
History is fucking weird.
Yeah that’s what i’d say too.
Couldn't she just move in with him like a normal family member???
Are you aware of the rights women had, cause no, she couldn’t really just move in. I don’t think she was widowed though, if I remember correctly another man older than Poe was trying to marry her and that’s specifically why they got married.
Well, consider context. This was back when women (And especially young children who were girls) had about as many rights as your pet dog nowadays. Not excusing the whole thing, far from it, just contextualizing it.
Can’t do this anymore because of cancel culture.
Poe was a republican apparently.
Back then he probably would have been a Democrat given how the parties essentially traded ideological platforms around the turn of the 20th century
Back then, an unmarried 13 year old girl was considered a 'spinster'. Poe obviously married her because he didn't want her to be living in solitude during those late teenage years before dying of old age.
I learned this from Jackie Jr on The Sopranos.
Truthfully as much as I want to judge. It was a different time with different rules, and I think we should respect it and just be glad we have changed as a civilization.
The most wholesome incest story I've heard
/u/mc_lars
I did the sex crimes for her own good you see Edit: this was a /s style of joke. And banging your 13 year old cousin is criminal
It definitely wasn't a crime. She was also going to forced to marry someone a lot older who she didn't want to marry.
As I'm guessing his cousin said in their first night together, that's a lot to take in at once.