Poe's Life in Boston

EDGAR ALLAN POE TO MARIA CLEMM
Letter
written between August 28 and September 10, 1849
[Full Text]

In mid-July 1849, Poe returned to Richmond and soon after proposed marriage to Elmira Royster, the daughter of a former neighbor of his foster father John Allan. He had first fallen in love with Elmira in 1825 when he was sixteen, but the romance was thwarted by her parents. She later married Alexander Shelton, a Richmond businessman with whom she had four children before he died in 1844. Elmira hesitated when Poe proposed but eventually agreed to an engagement. On September 27, 1849 Poe left Richmond intending to settle his affairs in the New York and to return with his mother-in-law, Maria (Muddy) Clemm. But as the reality of a second marriage approached, he continued to insist to Muddy "I must be somewhere where I can see Annie ... I want to live near Annie" and "Do not tell me anything about Annie–I cannot bear to hear it now–unless you can tell me that Mr. R. [Annie's husband, Charles Richmond] is dead." Poe never again made it to the North. On October 3, 1849, he was found semi-conscious and delirious in Baltimore. He died there on October 9th instead.

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