Unexplained Death of Edgar Allan Poe’s Wife

Charu ShambhaviPranshu Rakhecha
18 Min Read

As an English major, I’ve always sworn to go through the intricacies of a writer’s or poet’s life before breaking down a piece written by them. Honestly, this practice has opened the doors and windows for my perspective!

That is why I believe that if you are a literature enthusiast like me or are simply getting into the literary world of Edgar Allan Poe, you first need to unravel the mystery surrounding the Unexplained Death of Edgar Allan Poe’s Wife.

For those who might not know so much about Allan Poe, I’ll try to summarise his entire identity into two to three lines. Edgar Allan Poe was one of the very first American writers who tried to sustain with nothing but only his flare of writing. Poe wrote in the 19th century and mostly specialized in short stories, mysteries, and horrors.

Edgar Allan Poe - Writer | Mini Bio | BIO

He is known to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre but lived a financially strained life despite it all. Some of his best works are “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”. He is also known for his art of poetry. 

Now that his introduction is out of our way, we can finally solve this conundrum. But first, we must know who his wife was, how their marriage and romance (if any) were, and then get to the mortal parts of the story.

1. Virginia Clemm Poe: Edgar Allan Poe’s Wife

1.1 Early Life

Present day Baltimore Maryland
Source: Pixabay

Though Poe wrote many horror novels, his wife didn’t remotely resemble a ghost. Instead, she was a sweet little girl named Virginia Eliza Clemm. She was born in 1822 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The first thing that should be mentioned is that William Clemm was nothing but a mere hardware businessman. The second thing is that the rest of the family opposed his marriage to Maria Poe. They didn’t receive any support from the family, and Maria had to take up sewing.

Therefore, to no one’s surprise, the family suffered financially after the death of Virginia’s father. Little Virginia and her family shifted with their grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, when Maria couldn’t meet her family’s financial needs. The family survived on Elizabeth’s pension. Edgar Allan Poe joined her family in early 1831.

1.2 Were They Enchanted to Meet Each Other?

Bizarre Facts You Didn

The right word for their encounter would be ‘indifferent’ and not ‘enchanted.’ For starters, Virginia Clemm was only seven concerning Allan Poe’s 20. Soon before the two families started living together, they had to endure the sudden death of Poe’s older brother due to the deadly tuberculosis.

Then, their grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes Poe, died. This was soon followed by the news that Virginia’s brother, Henry, had died. So, to say that the house was constantly in a sullen mood would be an understatement.

This didn’t stop the son of David Poe and Eliza Poe from courting a new neighbor named Mary Devereaux. Quite ironically, poor Virginia acted as their infamous messenger.

When exactly the romance (or, as the modern dictionary would like to call it, grooming) between the two starts, budding might be uncertain. However, it is believed that by the time he shifted to Richmond, Virginia, to take up a job with the Southern Literary Messenger, Edgar Allan Poe was already adamant about marrying Virginia.

His aunt and Virginia, soon-to-be Poe’s mother, Maria Clemm, encouraged him. It is also speculated that she might have neglected the huge age gap between Allan Poe and her daughter because of their grave economic situation.

2. The Aftermath of the Wedding

That Time a 26 Year Old Edgar Allan Poe Married His 13 Year Old Cousin

After a brief time in which Edgar Allan Poe courted Virginia Clemm, both tied the auspicious knot of marriage on 16th May 1836. It might creep some people out, and rightfully so, that Allan Poe was a promising young man of 27 years while Virginia Poe was only a teenager of 13 years. One should also not forget that they married in a world where it was not bizarre for first cousins to marry.

Having led a lonely life since childhood, Edgar Allan Poe was more than delighted with his child bride. He took it upon himself to teach her everything ranging from classics to mathematics. Virginia Clemm Poe excelled in her piano lessons and had a melodious voice.

However, the relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Poe was less that of a couple and more of siblings. To make matters weirder, Virginia Clemm Poe called her husband “Eddy” while he referred to her as “sissy.” With time, the two evolve their relationship into a passionate and romantic one.

According to Poe biographer Joseph Wood Krutch, the couple might have never consummated their marriage. However, some also believe that intimacy was only performed once Virginia Poe turned 16. All in all, you could say that their marriage was a weird amalgamation of grooming and incest.

3. The First Crack in Their Glass

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
Source: Unsplash

Even though Edgar Allan Poe excelled at his job, the salary was still quite low to sustain his family of three. Hence, he retired from his career, and the family moved to Philadelphia in mid-1838. Poe then took up a day job while continuing his writing at night. 

The family was finally settling into a peaceful routine. Edgar Allan Poe had an opportunity to furnish a friend’s music-room and library, and he kept a piano for his wife’s enjoyment despite financial difficulties. 

On a cold January day in 1842, poor Virginia was playing the piano and singing when suddenly she started coughing violently. After seeing the first droplets of blood, the realization dawned upon Edgar Allan Poe. His beloved Virginia was suffering from the same disease that had already snatched his many loved ones from him. Virginia’s illness was consumption, now known as tuberculosis. 

The family yet again shifted their habitat to New York. Edgar Allan Poe started to drink a lot under the stress of Virginia’s illness. Poe’s literary work, “The Raven,” published in 1845, was a hit and accentuated his career. He also started working at The Evening Mirror.

However, the earnings from it still weren’t very satisfactory. Allan Poe became the associate editor of The Broadway Journal. He witnessed constant criticism and bitings in his early career.

4. Poe’s Illicit Affairs

The reference cat in Poe's poems
Source: Unsplash

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” was not only his rise to fame in the literary salons but also in the heart of the poetess Frances Sargent Osgood. Poe drew her attention to him by describing her poems as an exception among the rest of the deteriorating American poetry.

This exchange between them resulted in many poems dedicated to each other. Though their identities were common knowledge at that time. It was also believed that Fanny Osgood was being courted semi-publicly by Edgar Allan Poe. 

The only roadblock in this arrangement was that both of them already had different spouses. While Edgar Allan Poe had Virginia, Fanny Osgood was wed locked to the portrait painter Samuel Osgood.

Virginia served her days in quarantine at the age of 23 because of her fatal disease. She was very much aware of her husband’s relationship with Fanny and, in a way, even encouraged it. She deemed Frances Sargent Osgood worthy of her husband’s friendship and even invited her to their home on numerous occasions. In return, Edgar Allan Poe shared some of their letters with Virginia and her mother, Maria.

4.1 With Elizabeth Ellet

While Virginia approved the friendship between Edgar Allan Poe and Fanny Osgood, someone else grew envious of it. Another poet and writer, Elizabeth Ellet, had started developing feelings for Allan Poe and was growing vindictive towards Fanny Osgood.

Poe and Ellet had a mutual poetic admiration because they flirted with each other through their poems at The Broadway Journal.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Ellet ensured that her insinuations regarding Edgar Allan Poe and Fanny Osgood’s relationship reached Virginia’s ears. She even went to the lengths of writing abusive letters to Virginia Clemm Poe. It disheartened her, but her faith in her husband didn’t waiver for a second.

When Ellet reached out to Osgood with her concerns, she found herself worrisome because of her reputation. Samuel Osgood asked Elizabeth Ellet to apologize to his wife formally. Elizabeth, in turn, blames Edgar Allan Poe’s head and even spreads rumors about his insanity.

The effects of this scandal on Poe were scandalous. His alliance with Osgood diminished, and he never saw her again. Also, Elizabeth Ellet never failed to miss a chance on proving Poe a madman. 

5. The Last Chapter Before Virginia’s Death

Unexplained Death of Edgar Allan Poe's Wife
Source: Unsplash

In May of 1846, Edgar Allan Poe, along with Virginia Clemm Poe and Maria Clemm, moved to their final home in Fordham, The Bronx, fourteen miles outside of New York City. The house is known as the Poe cottage in the present times. 

Edgar Allan Poe had the productive phase of his career after the success of “The Raven” and before the death of his wife. His fame couldn’t uplift the poverty and Virginia’s hopelessness. The death of his wife brought him into mental illness and a declining career.

Day by day, Virginia’s condition was worsening. Visitors would often come to see her condition. To one of the visitors, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, she said, “I know I shall die soon; I know I can’t get well, but I want to be as happy as possible and make Edgar happy.” She promised her husband that she would be his guardian angel after departing for the heavenly abode.

For some time, a family friend named Marie Louise Shew. Edgar Allan Poe wrote to her, “Kindest – dearest friend – My poor Virginia still lives, although failing fast and now suffering much pain. May god grant her life until she sees you, and thank you again! Her bosom is full to overflowing – like my own – with boundless, inexpressible gratitude to you. Lest she may never see you more – she bids me say that she sends you her sweetest kiss of love and will die blessing you. But come – oh, come tomorrow!”

The day after Edgar Allan Poe sent that Shew, Virginia Clemm Poe died. It was 30th January 1847 when Poe collapsed at the bedside of poor Virginia the moment she stopped living. Marie Louise Shew helped in organizing the funeral. Several newspapers, including the New York Daily Tribune, published her death notices

6. How did Edgar Allan Poe reflect on Virginia’s death

Soon after Virginia’s death, Edgar Allan Poe fell into a pothole of great depression. He often visited her grave in the dead of the night, for which his friend Charles Chauncey Burr also accounted. 

After the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia’s remains were later placed beside her husband’s in Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland.

6.1 Poe’s Letter to a Friend

Poe's letter to friend
Source: Unsplash

Poe wrote to a friend named George Eveleth, Six years ago, a wife whom I loved like no man ever loved before ruptured a blood vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her forever and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially, and I again hoped….

At the end of the year, the vessel broke again. I went through precisely the same scene. Again, about a year afterward. Then again – again – again and even once again at varying intervals.

Each time I felt all the agonies of her death – and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive – nervous to a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank; God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had, indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the leash of my wife.

This I can and do endure as I become a man – it was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I could no longer have endured with the total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I receive a new but – oh God! How melancholy an existence.”

6.2 The Grief

Though Poe was devastated by her death, he did try to court other women. However, it was nothing serious. Edgar Allan Poe died on 7th October 1849, at the age of 40. He had collapsed at a tavern in Baltimore with no female love in his life whatsoever.

8. In The End

Unexplained Death of Edgar Allen Poe's Wife
Source: Unsplash

After having led a life lonelier than a bachelor when Poe met Virginia, he thought his stars had finally aligned. In her presence, he found comfort, peace, and solace. She was his student, companion, child, and home. Having all of that taken away by the same illness that haunted his other family members is as cruel a tragedy as there ever could be.

The fact that he never settled down after Virginia Poe’s death only verifies the above statements. She was his light in the dark; Poe’s life was purposeless without her. It wouldn’t be wrong to say she was his only true friend. 

When we talk about great romances, we talk of Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and many different creations by other writers. Still, sometimes, it is a writer’s story torn apart by fate that goes unnoticed. Who would have thought that Edgar’s characters always ended up with no love because he took their inspiration from his own life?

However, loving someone despite illness and fearing losing them is the bravest love. Edgar Poe had that love. He might have been alone physically when he took his last breaths, but he had his Virginia with him in spirit. Also, I’d like to believe that, if an afterlife exists, Virginia and Poe are together, probably singing sweet nothings to each other.

Last Updated on by Sathi

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This is Charu, an English major from Banaras Hindu University. She tries to be a writer, loves to disguise her passions as poetry and is an avid reader through and through. With her penmanship, she can communicate her thoughts in the simplest manner possible with proper diction and lack of grammatical mistakes. (She sincerely hopes to live up to her English professors' expectations someday.)

Pranshu Rakhecha is a Computer Science Major with a Bachelor's Degree in Technology. He loves to merge his art of words with a passion for creative exploration. His curiosity fuels technical pursuits and captivating writing.

Education B.tech Specialization in Computer Science Certifications/Qualifications Harvard CS50 Certification First rank in State and 24th in the National Level of Wiz National Spell Bee