In which the question is discussed on whether Edgar's much reputed habit of excessively tapping the admiral is merited by objective examination of the historical record and primary documentation.

All right. DID Edgar Allan Poe - probably the one writer of the early 19th Century that is still an integral part of world culture - take as much as was good for him? Or were the tales of his imbibing simply scurrilous innuendo spread by his literary enemies?

Well, let's first take a look at some quotes about Edgar (with some editing for brevity) from people who not only knew him personally but were his friends.

Pride, self-reproach, want, weariness, drove him to seek excitement, perhaps forgetfulness, in wine.

Had he but possessed a will sufficiently strong to preserve him from the temptation which was his greatest bane, how fair and happy might have been his future career!

His passion for strong drink was of a most marked and peculiar character.

On the first evening he seemed somewhat excited, having been over-persuaded to take some port wine. On the second day he kept pretty steady, but since then he has been, at intervals, quite unreliable.

One glass at a time was about all that he could take. But this was sufficient to rouse his whole nervous nature into a state of strangest excitement.

The least drop of wine, to most men a moderate stimulus, was to him literally the cup of frenzy.

He would always seize the tempting glass, generally unmixed with either sugar or water, in fact, perfectly straight and without the least apparent pleasure swallow the contents, never pausing until the last drop had passed his lips.

Poor fellow! [Poe] is not a teetotaller by any means and I fear he is going headlong to destruction, moral, physical, and intellectual.

I found him a little tipsy, as if he were recovering from a fit of drunkenness, and with that over-solemnity with which men in such cases try to convince you of their sobriety.

Mr. Poe was a fine gentleman when he was sober. But when he was drinking he was about one of the most disagreeable men I have ever met.

These quotes, mind you, are from Edgar's friends.

And Edgar's enemies?

I saw someone struggling in a vain attempt to raise himself from the gutter. To my utter astonishment I found it was Poe.

Poe's after-career in Philadelphia was marked by the same occurrence at intervals of his violations of sobriety, and the town became full of scandalous stories about his conduct in other respects.

Edgar Allan Poe is dead. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.

Well, enough of personalities.

And now, what did Edgar himself say?

Well, here are some quotes from Edgar Allan Poe ipse:

I should not have got half so drunk on his excellent Port wine but for the rummy coffee with which I was forced to wash it down.

The simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying.

It sometimes happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to bed.

I have been taken to prison once since I came here for getting drunk.

All was hallucination, arising from an attack which I had never before experienced - an attack of madness from drinking. May Heaven grant that it prove a warning to me for the rest of my days!

While I resided in Richmond, I certainly did give way to the temptation held out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality.

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.

So the reports about Edgar's departure from sobriety came from his friends, his enemies, and even from Edgar himself. So it's a pretty much inescapable conclusion that there were times when Edgar drank as much as was good for him even given the rather generous standards of his well-lubricated era.

So the question becomes not if, but how often Edgar strayed from the abstemious path to which all aspire.

Professional scholars and historians will certainly point out that these quoted and edited excerpts are just that. They are excerpts removed from their context, and any explanations and qualifications are edited out. To avoid mere (ptui) journalistic sensationalism, the student of Edgar's Life and Times needs to go beyond simple sound or text bites.

But putting the quotes in context can bring even more confusion regarding how much (or even if) Edgar drank. On April 1, 1841, he wrote to his friend and publisher, Dr. Joseph Snodgrass:

At no period of my life was I ever what men call intemperate. I never was in the habit of intoxication. I never drunk drams, etc.

But for a brief period while I resided in Richmond and edited the Messenger I certainly did give way at long intervals to the temptation held out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an everyday matter to my companions.

In short it sometimes happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to bed. But it is now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drink - four years, with the exception of a single deviation which occurred shortly after my leaving Burton, and when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider with the hope of relieving a nervous attack.

I have now only to repeat to you in general my solemn assurance that my habits are as far removed from intemperance as the day from the night. My sole drink is water.

Edgar's entire quote - with the earlier parts taken "in context" - clearly raises more questions than it provides answers.

For one thing, Edgar says he was never in the habit of intoxication. Except, he added, when he was working in Richmond and later when he was in Philadelphia (after leaving "Burtons", that is, his editorship of Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine). He adds that he only had a single deviation when he occasionally resorted to cider.

In other words, Edgar says he never drank except when he did.

Edgar's qualified claim that he hadn't drunk anything in the previous four years would put his (relatively) temperate lifestyle extending from 1838 to 1841. These were his first years in Philadelphia and were times of relative prosperity and tranquility for the Poe household. This consisted of Edgar, his wife (and first cousin) Virginia, and his mother-in-law (and aunt) Maria (usually pronounced mar-EYE-uh). So we might concede that at the least Edgar was drinking less than usual.

However if Edgar had been drinking only water during that time, his restraint didn't last. A little over a year later, on July 18, 1842. Edgar wrote to the publishers James and Henry Langley.

Will you be kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behavior while [visiting] in New York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me, but the simple truth is that [poet] Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying.

So regardless of Edgar's avowal of sobriety that he only occasionally drank cider (for medicinal reasons), there is independent corroboration for his going a bit too far with harder spirits. Mint juleps, after all, are made from bourbon.

That Edgar mentioned his time in The River City of Richmond is particularly noteworthy. It was there we have the first, indisputable, and entirely contemporary account of Edgar's problem with the bottle. He started writing for the Southern Literary Messenger in late 1834, but in a few months he was out of the job. The circumstances prompted a fatherly but admonitory letter from his boss, Thomas Willis White, which he wrote on September 29, 1835:

Dear Edgar,

Would that it were in my power to unbosom myself to you, in language such as I could on the present occasion, wish myself master of. I cannot do it and therefore must be content to speak to you in my plain way.

You have fine talents, Edgar, and you ought to have them respected as well as yourself. Learn to respect yourself, and you will very soon find that you are respected. Separate yourself from the bottle and bottle companions forever!

If you should come to Richmond again and again should be an assistant in my office, it must be expressly understood by us that all engagements on my part would be dissolved the moment you get drunk. No man is safe who drinks before breakfast! No man can do so and attend to business properly.

Edgar did go back to work for Thomas and it seems he stopped drinking - at least he stopped enough so that he was steady in the office. Unfortunately, there were other facets to his personality where he quickly wore out his editorial welcome. Without going into details, Edgar could be a downright pain in the תַּחַת. Soon Thomas was writing to his friend, the writer and professor at William and Mary College, Nathaniel Beverly Tucker.

Poe pesters me no little end. He is continually after me for money. I am as sick of his writings as I am of him and am rather more than half inclined to send him up another dozen dollars in the morning and along with it all his unpublished manuscripts.

Treat all of this as private, which you think ought to be private. Let all be private about Poe.

So in 1838 Edgar moved to Philadelphia with Virginia and Maria. He took the job as the editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine which was owned by a famous actor, William Evans Burton. William said the job would only take about two hours a day, and so $10 a week would be more than generous.

But it didn't take long for Edgar's habits to become noted by the residents of the City of Brotherly Love and the Town that Snowballed Santa Claus. Charles Alexander, the publisher of Burton's, left some comments about his new editor:

That Mr. Poe had faults, seriously detrimental to his own interests, none, of course, will deny. They were, unfortunately, too well known in the literary circles of Philadelphia, were there any disposition to conceal them.

Notice that Charles never said that Edgar got drunk, intoxicated, inebriated, plastered, hammered, smashed, sloshed, or [rat] faced. The elliptical language used by Charles is by no means uncommon when coming from Edgar's friends. Because of such reluctance to call a shovel a shovel, Edgar's staunchest supporters are able to gleefully point out the paucity of instances where it's clearly stated that Edgar was wearing his beer goggles.

How much Edgar drank was a subject of discussion with his contemporaries as was the effects of the drinking. That the smallest amount could produce an extreme effect was in fact mentioned by one of Edgar's fellow poets, Nathaniel Parker Willis:

We heard from one who knew him well that with a single glass of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and although none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.

Although this statement is second hand ("We heard ..."), there is an eye-witness account of this "single glass theory" from a minister (!) who as a young divinity student knew Edgar during the last two years of his life.

While walking with Poe, and feeling thirsty, [I] pressed him to take a glass of wine with me. He declined, but finally compromised by taking a glass of ale with me. Almost instantly a great change came over him. Previously engaged in an indescribably eloquent conversation, he became as if paralyzed and with compressed lips and fixed glaring eyes returned without uttering a word to the house which we were visiting. For hours the strange spell hung over him. He seemed a changed being as if stricken by some peculiar phase of insanity.

The minister concluded:

He never drank, never could have drank [sic], to excess. His fault, then, was not in his excessive indulgence in intoxicating drinks, but in his exceptional susceptibility to the influence of liquor.

Such reports have led some scholars to conclude Edgar suffered from what is known as alcohol intolerance. That is his body wasn't capable of properly metabolizing alcohol and drinking produced a build-up in his body of toxic substances like acetaldehyde.

However, the severe mental and physical symptoms described by Edgar's acquaintances don't seem to fit what modern medical texts describe for the condition which are flushing, hives, stuffy nose, and low blood pressure.

There are, though, descriptions of what is called the pathological reaction to alcohol or pathalogical intoxication. That was later renamed as alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication, and was first described by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, an early German "alienist" (ergo, psychiatrist). According to the dictionary, pathologic reaction to alcohol is:

An exceedingly severe reaction to ingestion of alcohol, especially to small amounts. It is manifested by irrational violent behavior followed by exhaustion, sleep, and loss of recall of the event. The patient may not be intoxicated. The etiology [i. e., origin] is unknown but is associated with hypoglycemia, exhaustion, and stress."

Now this description does seem to fit what some report about Edgar. A single drink - the veritable "drop" - could produce an intense and adverse reaction but was not intoxication in the normal sense. The problem, though, with this diagnosis is that some medical authorities doubt that the pathologic reaction to alcohol is even a real disease and instead is a condition that has been crafted from anecdotal evidence - such as the stories told about Edgar Allan Poe.

In any case that Edgar could only drink a single glass contradicts other contemporary evidence. In a letter dated March 16, 1843, to the writers Jesse Dow and Frederick Thomas, Edgar mentions a time he had more than one:

Please express my regret to Mr. Fuller for making such a fool of myself in his house, and say to him (if you think it necessary) that I should not have got half so drunk on his excellent Port wine but for the rummy coffee with which I was forced to wash it down.

What made this episode a particular problem was that when Edgar was at Mr. Fuller's house he was visiting Washington, D. C., looking for a government job. A friend had landed a federal clerkship and wrote Edgar that he got paid $1500 a year (about $50,000 in today's money) with a five hour 9 to 2 work day. He suggested that Edgar apply for such a position.

So Edgar went to Washington to speak directly with Robert Tyler, the son of the current President, John Tyler. Politically Edgar was a Whig, or at least he was when seeking a political job in a Whig administration.

Unfortunately Edgar's experience in the house of Mr. Fuller was par for his entire week-long trip to the Capital City. In fact Edgar's bibulous job interview was a disaster as was confirmed by Jesse in a letter to Thomas Clarke:

Sir,

I seem it to be my bounden duty to write you this hurried letter in relation to our mutual friend E[dgar]. A[llan]. P[oe].

He arrived here a few days since. On the first evening he seemed somewhat excited, having been over-persuaded to take some port wine.

On the second day he kept pretty steady, but since then he has been at intervals quite unreliable.

The reference to Edgar's being "excited" is a common 19th Century English euphemistic aphorism saying Edgar got completely skunked. The phrase was common enough that Edgar himself would use the word when speaking about the effect of alcohol on himself or on characters in his short stories.

As to the effect of his "excitement" during his trip to Washington, Edgar provided further details to Jesse:

However this is for Dow. My dear fellow, thank you a thousand times for your kindness and great forbearance, and don't say a word about the cloak turned inside out or other peccadilloes of that nature. Also, express to your wife my deep regret for the vexation I must have occasioned her.

Edgar ended up writing:

I would be glad, too, if you would take an opportunity of saying to Mr. Robert Tyler that if he can look over matters and get me the Inspectorship [at the Philadelphia Custom's House], I will join [the anti-drinking temperance society] the Washingtonians forthwith. I am as serious as a judge, and much so than many. I think it would be a feather in Mr. Tyler's cap to save from the perils of mint julep and "Port wines" a young man of whom all the world thinks so well and who thinks so remarkably well of himself.

So Edgar showed up in Washington to apply for a government job, began drinking, and walked around with his coat inside out. But he reassured everyone that if he got the job he'd join a temperance society. Therefore by hiring him, he assured them, the president's son would be helping him swear off the sauce.

Edgar didn't seem to understand how concerned his friends were when they saw him staggering around town. In fact, Jesse added that they were doing their best to get him back to Philadelphia and fast:

Under all circumstances of the case, I think it advisable for you to come on and see him safely back to his home. Mrs. [Virginia] Poe is in a bad state of health and I charge you, as you have a soul to be saved, to say not one word to her about him until he arrives with you. I shall expect you or an answer to this letter by return mail.

Should you not come, we will see him on board the [train] cars bound for Philadelphia, but we fear he might be detained in Baltimore and not be out of harm's way.

I do this under a solemn responsibility. Mr. Poe has the highest order of intellect, and I cannot bear that he should be the sport of senseless creatures, who, like oysters, keep sober, and gape and swallow everything.

I think your good judgment will tell you what course you ought to pursue in the matter, and I cannot think it will be necessary to let him know that I have written you this letter, but I cannot suffer him to injure himself here without giving you this warning.

And no, Edgar did not get the job.

Another example of Edgar's "excitement" is when he was visiting Sarah Helen Whitman after Virginia had died. Edgar had been hoping to marry Helen who was balking at the suggestion particularly since her friends had been warning her of Edgar's episodes. As Helen remembered the visit:

He came alone to my mother's house in a state of wild and delirious excitement, calling upon me to save him from some terrible impending doom.

The tones of his voice were appalling and rang through the house. Never have I heard anything so awful, even to sublimity.

It was long before I could nerve myself to see him. My mother was with him more than two hours before I entered the room. He hailed me as an angel sent to save him from perdition. When my mother requested me to have a cup of strong coffee prepared for him, he clung to me so frantically as to tear away a piece of the muslin dress I wore.

After a while Edgar calmed down and Helen then said that her mother sent for a doctor who found "symptoms of cerebral congestion" which is a typically vague 19th century disease that means that Edgar was acting confused and out of it. Although the condition was hypothesized to cause strokes, atrophy, depression, maniac outbursts, headaches, coma, and seizures, today the disease doesn't even exist.

But since we have Helen's mom asking for a cup of "strong coffee" - then as today a common but completely ineffective folk remedy to induce sobriety - it's clear that the ladies knew full well what Edgar's real problem was.

It wasn't just when Edgar was away from home that he had trouble restraining his thirst. When the young poet and editor, James Russell Lowell, visited Edgar, he reported:

[Poe] was a little tipsy, as if he were recovering from a fit of drunkenness, and with that over-solemnity with which men in such cases try to convince you of their sobriety. I well remember (for it pained me) the anxious expression of his wife.

Although James's account wasn't written for more than thirty years, it has good corroboration. A few months after Edgar died, Maria wrote James about the visit.

Oh, if you only knew his bitter sorrow when I told him how unlike himself he was while you were there, you would have pitied him. He always felt particularly anxious to possess your approbation.

Another of Edgar's acquaintances, Thomas Dunn English, also told of meeting Edgar in Philadelphia under similar, albeit more extreme, circumstances.

I was passing along the street one night on my way homeward when I saw someone struggling in a vain attempt to raise himself from the gutter. Supposing the person had tripped and fallen, I bent forward and assisted him to arise. To my utter astonishment I found it was Poe.

He recognized me and was very effusive in his recognition. I managed to get him through the front gate of his yard to the front door. I knocked at the door, and Mrs. Clemm opened it. Raising her voice, she cried: "You make Eddie drunk, and then you bring him home." As I was turning away Poe grasped me by the shoulder and said: "Never mind the old [!]. Come in."

I shook myself from his clutch and, merely telling Mrs. Clemm that if I found Eddie in the gutter again I'd leave him there, went on my way.

Thomas, though, was careful to put things in proper context.

Three days after when I saw Poe, for if I remember rightly the next two days he was not at the office, he was heartily ashamed of the matter and said that it was an unusual thing with him and would never occur again.

For some weeks I saw Poe occasionally at the office and elsewhere, industrious as a beaver. I think it was several weeks before I observed any other aberration. Then I heard through two or three persons that Poe had been found gloriously drunk in the street after nightfall and had been helped home. I did not see him, however, in that condition. For it was some time before I called at the office of the magazine and then found Poe clothed and in his right mind.

Thomas, it must be said, had been one of Edgar's friends, but their relationship had - ah - "cooled" after Edgar showed up at his house demanding a gun so he could fight a duel. When Thomas declined the request, the two men got into fisticuffs and depending on who you believe, Thomas won or Edgar won.

Despite that Thomas is often described as one of Edgar's "enemies", his account does not differ in tone and content to those told by Edgar's friends. And Thomas particularly cautioned the reader about assuming Edgar was a routine drinker.

It has been said time and again that Poe was an habitual drunkard. This is not true. His offenses against sobriety were committed at irregular intervals.

As with so many problem drinkers, Edgar would swear off but his resolve would last only as long as it took him to recover from his binge. As Thomas wrote:

He was always sick after these excesses, a sickness lasting from one to several days. He was then repentant and full of promises to abandon stimulants entirely in the future.

What is important about Thomas's story is that he stated that although the amount of alcohol Edgar could tolerate was usually low, there were times he could drink a fair amount and not seem affected.

John R. Thompson, for a long time editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, tells how on one occasion Poe drank a tumblerful of brandy which had on him apparently no effect. Mr. Thompson was a gentleman of the highest reputation for truth and honor, and I cannot doubt his word.

But Poe must have been laboring under some strong excitement which counteracted the force of the stimulant. I know, so far as observation on two occasions went, that one glass of liquor would affect him visibly, and the second or third produce intoxication.

Here, then, is a new aspect of the single glass theory. Yes, a single glass produced a noticeable effect on Edgar. But it took two or even three to produce what people would recognize as true intoxication.

A similar story was told by Thomas Holley Chivers who was a physician and poet, and at one time he had actually offered to set up and support Edgar if he would move to Georgia. Edgar, though, declined the offer possibly because it looked too much like charity - Edgar was a proud man - or also because it would have taken Edgar away from the metropolitan centers of book and magazine publishers. Of course maybe Edgar just wasn't quite sure what to make of Thomas.

Thomas's encounter with Edgar was in 1845. Admittedly some commentators have questioned the accuracy of his story as it seems to be given with a bit too much detail including the rather lengthy speech Maria gave when Thomas brought Edgar home.

Oh! Dr. C[hivers]! how I have prayed that my poor Eddy might not get in this way while you were here! But I knew when he went away from here this morning that he would not return in his right senses! Oh! I do believe that the poor boy is deranged! His wife is now at the point of death with bronchitis [actually Virginia had tuberculosis] and cannot bear to see him! Oh!, my poor Virginia! She cannot live long! She is wasting away, day by day for the Doctors can do her no good. But if they could, seeing this continually in poor Eddy, would kill her, for she dotes upon him! Oh! She is devoted to him! She fairly adores him! But would to God that she had died before she had ever seen him! My poor child! He has been in bed here for a whole week with nothing in the world the matter with him, only lying here pretending to be sick, in order to avoid delivering the poem promised before one of the Literary Societies of the City. Now he is in this deranged state again.

Despite the doubts harbored about Thomas's book, what he tells agrees well with what Edgar himself wrote about the time of Virginia's sickness. As Edgar wrote in his famous letter to George Eveleth .

Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as 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 a year the vessel broke again I went through precisely the same scene. Again in 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 in 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 death of my wife. This I can and do endure as becomes a man. It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair which I could not longer have endured without 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.

Virginia's years of illness were from 1842 to 1847. So for this five year period Edgar admits he was drinking heavily and at times he literally had to be carried home.

Among the most important documents about Edgar's life are the letters he wrote to Maria while he was on his famous (and last) trip where he traveled through Philadelphia and Baltimore to Richmond. The purpose was to drum up subscriptions for a proposed magazine, and because Virginia had died two years before, Edgar had to leave Maria at home by herself.

Mail was amazingly rapid in those days, often taking less than a day to get from a sender in Baltimore to a recipient in New York. Most of Edgar's letters to Maria are well written, clear headed, and articulate. So we can imagine Maria's concern when she received the following and very strange letter:

New York [actually Edgar was in Philadelphia], July 7, 1849.

My dear, dear Mother,

I have been so ill, have had the cholera, or spasms quite as bad, and can now hardly hold the pen.

The very instant you get this, come to me. The joy of seeing you will almost compensate for our sorrows. We can but die together. It is no use to reason with me now; I must die. I have no desire to live since I have done "Eureka." I could accomplish nothing more. For your sake it would be sweet to live, but we must die together. You have been all in all to me, darling, ever beloved mother, and dearest, truest friend.

I was never really insane except on occasions where my heart was touched

I have been taken to prison once since I came here for getting drunk, but then I was not. It was about Virginia.

So Edgar says he and Maria have to meet so they can die together. Then he says he was never really insane except when he was.

Finally he says he was taken to prison for being drunk even though he wasn't. Instead, he was taken to prison because of Virginia, his wife. But Virginia had been dead for two years.

Maria probably had no idea what to do. There was no way she could just leave New York to search for Edgar when it wasn't clear where he was. Then a week later, on July 14, Edgar wrote to her yet again:

Oh, my darling Mother,

It is now more than three weeks since I saw you, and in all that time your poor Eddy has scarcely drawn a breath except of intense agony. Perhaps you are sick or gone from Fordham in despair or dead. If you are but alive, and if I but see you again, all the rest is nothing. I love you better than ten thousand lives, so much so that it is cruel in you to let me leave you; nothing but sorrow ever comes of it.

Oh, Mother, I am so ill while I write. But I resolved that come what would, I would not sleep again without easing your dear heart as far as I could.

Oh God, my Mother, shall we ever again meet? If possible, oh, come! My clothes are so horrible, and I am so ill. Oh, if you could come to me, my mother. Write instantly. Oh, do not fail! God forever bless you.

By now Maria must have been frantic. But a week later, on July 19, Edgar wrote her a less alarming letter. That's when he says he had been suffering from "madness from drinking".

My Own Beloved Mother,

You will see at once by the handwriting of this letter that I am better, much better in health and spirits. Oh, if you only knew how your dear letter comforted me! It acted like magic. Most of my suffering arose from that terrible idea which I could not get rid of, the idea that you were dead. For more than ten days I was totally deranged, although I was not drinking one drop; and during this interval I imagined the most horrible calamities.

All was hallucination, arising from an attack which I had never before experienced - an attack of mania-à-potu [madness from drinking]. May Heaven grant that it prove a warning to me for the rest of my days! If so, I shall not regret even the horrible unspeakable torments I have endured.

As before the actual documentation about Edgar raises more questions than provides answers. For one thing, if Edgar wasn't drinking, how the heck could he suffer from "madness from drinking"?

That, believe it or not, is possible. If Edgar had been drinking and suddenly stopped, he could indeed have suffered from "madness from drinking".

Mania-à-potu is the 19th Century name for what is now called delerium tremens or the DT's. To cite the medical sources, this is a series of symptoms that results from the Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome or AWS.

The actual DT's produce confusion, hallucinations, fever, and even irregular heart beats. The symptoms show up between 2 and 10 days after the drinking stops, and can be a dangerous and even life-threatening condition. In this case, Edgar had left his aunt in their home near Fordham University and was traveling to Richmond. If Edgar had been drinking in New York but then suddenly stopped, the DT's could have set in and with it his disturbing letters to Maria.

There is additional and independent information about Edgar's strange visit and his mania-à-potu in Philadelphia. John Sartain was a Philadelphia publisher and engraver and he later wrote down his memories when Edgar suddenly dropped in.

Early one Monday afternoon [Poe] suddenly entered my engraving room, looking pale and haggard with a wild and frightened expression in his eyes. "Mr. Sartain, I have come to you for a refuge and protection. Will you let me stay with you ? It is necessary to my safety that I lie concealed for a time."

I assured him that he was welcome, that in my house he would be perfectly safe, and he could stay as long as he liked. But I asked him what was the matter.

He said it would be difficult for me to believe what he had to tell or that such things were possible in this nineteenth century. He told me that he had been on his way to New York, but he had overheard some men who sat a few seats back of him plotting how they should kill him and then throw him off from the platform of the car. They could not guess that he heard them as he sat so quiet and apparently indifferent to what was going on. But when the train arrived at the Bordentown station he gave them the slip.

I told him that it was my belief the whole scare was the creation of his own fancy for what interest could those people have in taking his life and at such risk to themselves? He said, "It was for revenge." "Revenge for what?" said I. He answered, "Well, a woman trouble."

Now and then some fragmentary conversation passed between us as I engraved, and shortly I began to perceive a singular change in the current of his thoughts. From such fear of assassination his mind gradually veered round to an idea of self-destruction, and his words clearly indicated this tendency.

After tea, it being now dark, I saw him preparing to go out, and on my asking him where he was going, he said, "To the Schuylkill [River]."

I told him I would go too, it would be pleasant in the moonlight later. After getting the omnibus we rode to its stopping-place, a little short of Fairmount, opposite a tavern on the north side of Callowhill Street. I kept on his left side, and on approaching the foot of the bridge guided him off until we reached the lofty flight of steep wooden steps which ascended almost to the top of the reservoir.

At this point Edgar started telling John about his adventures in Philadelphia. As John told the story:

Of course it is altogether beyond me to convey even a faint idea of his wild descriptions. "I was confined in a cell in [Philadelphia's] Moyamensing Prison," said he, "and through my grated window was visible the battlemented granite tower. On the topmost stone of the parapet between the embrasures stood perched against the dark sky a young female brightly radiant like silver dipped in light either in herself or in her environment, so that the crossbar shadows thrown from my window were distinct on the opposite wall. From this position, remote as it was, she addressed to me a series of questions in words not loud but distinct, and I dared not fail to hear and make apt response. Had I failed once either to hear or to make pertinent answer, the consequences to me would have been something fearful. But my sense of hearing is wonderfully acute so that I passed safely through this ordeal which was a snare to catch me. But another was in store".

"An attendant asked me if I would like to take a stroll about the place, I might see something interesting, and I agreed. In the course of our rounds on the ramparts we came to a cauldron of boiling spirits. He asked me if I would not like to take a drink. I declined, but had I said yes, what do you suppose would have happened?"

I said I could not guess.

"Why, I should have been lifted over the brim and dipped into the hot liquid up to the lip, like Tantalus."

"Yes," said I, "but that would have killed you."

"Of course it would," said he, "that's what they wanted. But, you see, again I escaped the snare. So at last, as a means to torture me and wring my heart, they brought out my mother, Mrs. Clemm, to blast my sight by seeing them first saw off her feet at the ankles, then her legs to the knees, her thighs at the hips, and so on."

At this point John was getting really worried.

It came into my mind that Poe might possibly in a sudden fit of frenzy leap freely forth with me in his arms into the black depth below, so I was watchful and kept on my guard. I asked him how he came to be in Moyamensing Prison. He answered that he had been suspected of trying to pass a fifty-dollar counterfeit note. The truth is, he was there for what takes so many there for a few hours, only the drop too much. I learned later that when his turn came in the motley group before Mayor Gilpin, someone said, "Why, this is Poe, the poet," and he was dismissed without the customary fine.

I got him safe home and gave him a bed on a sofa in the dining room, while I slept alongside him on three chairs, without undressing. On the second morning he appeared to have become so much like his old self that I trusted him to go out alone. Rest and regular meals had had a good effect although his mind was not yet entirely free from the nightmare. After an hour or two he returned, and then told me he had come to the conclusion that what I said was true, that the whole thing had been a delusion and a scare created by his own excited imagination.

Edgar's alarming visit to Philadelphia was in 1849. But this was scarcely his first days-long binge. One of his old girlfriends from Baltimore, Mary Starr Jennings, remembered Edgar showing up at her home in Jersey City around 1842. By this time she was married to a well-to-do clothing manufacturer, William Jennings, and she wrote a detailed account of Edgar's visit.

When living in Jersey City, I saw Mr. Poe again. He was still living in Philadelphia. He came to New York and went to my husband's place of business to find out where we lived. He was on a spree, however, and forgot the address before he got across the river. He made several trips backward and forward on the ferry-boat. He asked different people on board if they knew where I lived and finally found a deck hand who happened to know and told him. Mr. Poe said he was determined to find me, if he "had to go to hell" to do it. When my husband returned home he was told on the boat that a crazy man had been looking for his wife!

When Mr. Poe reached our house I was out with my sister, and he opened the door for us when we got back. We saw he was on one of his sprees, and he had been away from home for several days. He said to me: "So you have married that cursed ---. Do you love him truly? Did you marry him for love?" I answered, "That's nobody's business. That is between my husband and myself." He then said: "You don't love him. You do love me. You know you do."

Mr. Poe stayed to tea with us but ate nothing, only drank a cup of tea. He got excited in conversation and taking up a table-knife began to chop at some radishes on a dish in front of him. He cut them all up, and the pieces flew over the table, to everybody's amusement. After tea he asked me if I would not play and sing for him, and I sang his favorite song again. He then went away.

A few days afterward Mrs. Clemm came to see me, much worried about "Eddie dear," as she always addressed him. She did not know where he was, and his wife was almost crazy with anxiety. I told Mrs. Clemm that he had been to see me. A search was made, and he was finally found in the woods on the outskirts of Jersey City, wandering about like a crazy man. Mrs. Clemm took him back with her to Philadelphia. This was in the spring of 1842.

Although some biographer's have cautioned that Mary's account may be exaggerated, there's no reason to doubt the basic gist that Edgar showed up at her house and made a bit of a שְׁמוֹק of himself.

That Edgar seemed incapable of resisting - as he put it - "temptations" is also confirmed by Susan Archer Weiss (née Talley), who met Edgar when he was on his last trip to Richmond. As she wrote in her interesting (but not always accurate) book Home Life of Poe:

He was in high spirits and declared that he had never felt in better health. This was after an attack of serious illness due to his association with dissipated companions. Tempted as he was on every side and wherever he went in the city, it was not strange that he had not always the strength of will to resist, and twice during this visit to Richmond he was subject to attacks somewhat similar to those which he had known at Fordham and through which he was now kindly nursed by his friends.

Susan also provided details of the episodes in Fordham which occurred when Edgar was being helped by Mary Louise Shew who had also attended Virginia during her final days.

Under the influence of cheerful society, comfort and good cheer, Poe's health and spirits improved, and on his return home he again commenced writing. Soon, however, a relapse occurred, and his kind friend and physician [Mary Louise Shew] found it necessary to resume her visits to Fordham. For all this Poe was grateful, but, unfortunately, he was more and at length on a certain day he so far betrayed his feelings that Mrs. Shew then and there informed him that her visits to him must cease. On the day following she wrote a farewell letter in which she gave him advice and directions in regard to his health, warning him of its precarious state, and of the necessity of his abandoning the habits which were making a wreck of him mentally and physically.

Whatever the contradictory accounts of how much Edgar could take - a good size glass of brandy or a single drop of wine - it should be remembered that Edgar was a slight and slender man. In his later years poverty had reduced the quality and quantity of his Edgar's diet, and at one point he was eating nothing but bread and molasses. Small undernourished individuals rarely hold their liquor well, and during his increasingly infrequent times of prosperity where his general health was good and food more ample, Edgar could probably handle his drinks better.

It should also be remembered that despite the appeal of the single-glass theory when defending Edgar, single glasses come in various sizes and hold different quantities and beverages. A report from one of his fellow students at the University of Virginia, Thomas Goode Tucker, does mention Edgar having only one drink.

He would always seize the tempting glass, generally unmixed with either sugar or water, in fact, perfectly straight, and without the least apparent pleasure swallow the contents, never pausing until the last drop had passed his lips.

The comments of drinking whatever beverage it was "perfectly straight" and without "sugar or water" make it clear we're not talking about wine or beer. That Thomas mentions Edgar didn't "pause until the last drop had passed his lips" indicates we're talking about a large drink, and that Edgar was actually "chugging" a goodly size glass of straight liquor. In that case, a single glass was probably all that he needed.

The amount, frequency, and eagerness of which Edgar drank is confusticated because Edgar's friends and admirers sometimes changed their stories. For instance a month after Edgar died, John Moran, the attending physician of Edgar's last days in a Baltimore hospital, wrote to a letter to Maria Clemm:

Presuming you are already aware of the malady of which Mr. Poe died I need only state concisely the particulars of his circumstances from his entrance until his decease.

When brought to the hospital he was unconscious of his condition, who brought him, or with whom he had been associating. He remained in this condition from five o'clock in the afternoon, the hour of his admission, until three the next morning. This was on the third of October.

To this state succeeded tremor of the limbs, and at first a busy, but not violent or active delirium, constant talking, and vacant converse with spectral and imaginary objects on the walls.

I was summoned to his bedside so soon as conscious supervened, and questioned him in reference to his family, place of residence, relatives, etc. But his answers were incoherent and unsatisfactory. He told me, however, he had a wife in Richmond (which, I have since learned was not the fact), that he did not know when he left that city, or what had become of his trunk of clothing.

Wishing to rally and sustain his now fast sinking hopes I told him I hoped that in a few days he would be able to enjoy the society of his friends here, and I would be most happy to contribute in every possible way to his ease and comfort. At this he broke out with much energy and said the best thing his best friend could do would be to blow out his brains with a pistol, that when he beheld his degradation he was ready to sink in the earth, etc. Shortly after giving expression to these words Mr. Poe seemed to doze, and I left him for a short time.

When I returned I found him in a violent delirium, resisting the efforts of two nurses to keep him in bed. This state continued until Saturday evening (he was admitted on Wednesday) when he commenced calling for one "Reynolds" which he did through the night up to three on Sunday morning. At this time a very decided change began to affect him. Having become enfeebled from exertion he became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time, then gently moving his head he said "Lord help my poor Soul" and expired.

Your imperative request urges me to be candid, else I should not have been this plain. Rather far would I cancel his errors than even hint a fault of his."

From Dr. Moran's presupposition that Maria already knew what Edgar's "malady" was, Edgar's remarks about his "degradation", and that Dr. Moran didn't want to "hint a fault" of Edgar's, we have to conclude that Dr. Moran believed that Edgar finally succumbed to one of his by now well-documented "sprees".

But twenty-five years later, Dr. Moran seems to have re-evaluated not just his diagnosis and his medical advice, but also his observations:

Here was a patient supposed to have been drunk, very drunk, and yet refuses to take liquor. The ordinary response is, "Yes, Doctor, give me a little to strengthen my nerves." I found there was no tremor of his person, no unsteadiness of his nerves, no fidgeting with his hands, and not the slightest odor of liquor upon his breath or person. I saw my first impression had been a mistaken one.

I said to him both to be of service and to ascertain whether be would be inclined to take liquor.

"Will you take a little toddy?"

He opened wide his large eyes and fixed them so steadily upon me and with such anguish in them that I looked from him to the wall beyond the bed. He said:

"Sir, if its potency would transport me to the Elysian bowers of the undiscovered spirit world I would not taste it. I would not taste it. Of its horrors who can tell?"

"I must administer an opiate to give you sleep and rest."

Then he rejoined:

"Twin-devil and spectre of crazed and doomed mortals of earth and perdition!"

"Mr. Poe, it is very necessary that you should be quiet and free from excitement. You are in a critical condition, and excitement will hasten your death."

"Doctor, I am ill. Is there no hope?"

"The chances are against you."

"How long, oh, how long, before I see my dear Virginia? My dear Lenore! I would like to see my love, my dear love!"

"I will send for any one you wish to see."

"I knew nothing of his family and asked, "Have you a family?"

"No, my wife is dead, my dear Virginia; my mother-in-law lives. Oh, how my heart bleeds for her! Death's dark angel has done his work. I am so rudely clashed upon the storm without compass or helm. Language cannot tell the gushing wave that swells, sways and sweeps, tempest-like, over me, signaling the alarum of death Doctor, write to my mother, Maria Clemm. Tell her her Eddie is here. No, too late! Too late! I must lift the pall and open to you the secret that sears the heart, and dagger-like, pierces the soul. I was to have been married in ten days.” (Here he stopped to weep.)

My particular friend, Professor John C. S. Monkur had been sent for two or three times previously. He carefully examined his case, and, he gave it as his opinion, which I was fully prepared to corroborate, that Poe's death was caused by excessive nervous excitement from exposure, followed by loss of nervous power. The most appropriate name for his disease is encephalitis.

So from what he wrote in 1849 Dr. Moran believed Edgar had succumbed to mania-à-potu and had found Edgar's symptoms included trembling of the limbs, and although he was able to answer a few questions, he incorrectly said he had a wife in Richmond, he was largely incoherent, and had been holding "vacant" converse in his delerium.

But a quarter of a century later, Dr. Moran remembered no tremors and even reported that Edgar speaking perfectly lucidly and in long and stately poetical sentences. Edgar remembered all his familial relations correctly, that Virginia had died, and Maria was still alive. And for whatever reason, Dr. Moran had completely changed his diagnosis to Edgar dying from the effects of "exposure".

Dr. Moran's flip-flopping was noted early on. After his "Defense" of Poe was published, the minister who officiated at Edgar's funeral and who was a relative of Maria wrote to a friend:

Allow me to say that this remarkable statement of Dr. Moran both confuses and surprises me because it positively contradicts the statement made to me personally by the Doctor; and surprises me because he did not years ago give to the public what he now avers to be the true cause of Mr. Poe's death.

Edgar seems to have what people today call an addictive personality beginning in his (brief) university career. Not only did he gulp down drinks with élan, but at the U of V, he quickly developed a gambling addiction. As one of his classmates said:

Poe's passion for strong drink was as marked and as peculiar as that for cards. It was not the taste of the beverage that influenced him; without a sip or smack of the mouth he would seize a full glass, without water or sugar, and send it home with a single gulp. This frequently used him up

Poe was particularly fond of playing cards, seven-up and loo being his favorite games. He played in such an impassioned manner as to amount to almost an actual frenzy. All of his card playing and drinking he did under a sudden impulse. He would always seize the tempting glass and without the least apparent pleasure swallow the contents, never pausing until the last drop had passed his lips. One glass at a time was about all that he could take.

Edgar later complained that his problems were caused because it cost about $350 per year to attend the University of Virginia. But John Allan, who was loco parentis, sent him there with only $100. So Edgar had to resort to gambling to get the money to live on and so ran up a $2000 debt.

Or rather Edgar said he had to resort to gambling. But since $2000 then is about $60,000 now, you can imagine that Mr. Allan was not pleased. He yanked Edgar out of the U of V and stuck him to work in his counting house.

OK. Did Edgar need to gamble to cover expenses?

Almost certainly not. Although Mr. Allan may have sent him with a not-that-chintzy $100 ($3000 today), that amount would have at least tided him over for a while.

Besides, the $100 cash would have been for immediate needs, but actual cash was not necessary for many of the day-to-day expenses. Although there were no credit or debit cards, much spending was nevertheless on credit. Stores, restaurants, and lodgings, would keep a tab that would track what the customers were buying and how much they owed. Then at suitable intervals - monthly, semi-annually, yearly - the debts would be settled, either by cash payment or by a bank draft.

And the net of it is that Mr. Allan did pay off Edgar's debts from his time at Virginia, although not all the gambling debts. One author has also pointed out that it may not have been that Edgar was a rotten card player, but he very well might have been cheated.

Or - if we believe the accounts - his problems may have arisen because he had been playing cards and drinking. Never a good combination.

So what, as Flakey Foont asked Mr. Natural, does it all mean?

All in all, Edgar's friends, Edgar's enemies, and even Edgar himself tell the same story of Edgar and his drinking. And from the totality of the evidence there are a number of conclusions to be drawn:

First, the "single glass theory" is both false and true. Edgar's drinking was not always limited to a single glass, and there were times he himself admitted having multiple drinks in a sitting. But there are plenty of people - friends and foes - who saw him "affected" or "excited" by only one drink, an effect no doubt exacerbated by of his tendency to "chug" down drinks.

Wine was not Edgar's only drink nor were the quantities always small. He drank everything from ale to hard liquor and in a single evening he might take wine as well as liquor or cocktails.

Edgar's alcohol capacity was low and he may have developed clinical alcohol intolerance. But he was also of slight build and was often poorly nourished.

Edgar could go for extended times without drinking and he would alternate between times of drinking with hard work and sobriety. But he still drank more frequently than he liked to admit, and his "sprees" might last for days when his family and friends would have no idea where he was.

Finally, on his last trip to Richmond, Edgar was probably suffering from acute alcohol withdrawal. Ironically his attempting to swear off alcohol was producing delirium tremens which when untreated can have a fatality rate of over 30%. In other words, Edgar likely died because he stopped drinking.

Of course, there's still plenty of room for other scholarly opinions on the Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe, and even primary source material can be confusing. For instance, one of the lesser known "reminiscences" about Edgar was in 1896 when his old Richmond school teacher, Joseph Clarke, gave an interview and praised his former student.

As a boy Edgar was openhearted cheerful and good while as a man he was loving and affectionate to me. He would never forget to come and visit me when he came to Baltimore and when he became editor of Grahams Magazine, he sent it to me regularly.

The last time I saw him was when he was laid to rest in 1849 I went to his funeral. A large number of persons were present and I remember that the minister who officiated dwelt long on the great mans virtues

Now it is true that some biographies report that Joseph was present at Edgar's funeral. However, Henry Herring, Edgar's uncle, later wrote that in addition to himself, only Nielson Poe (a distant cousin) and himself represented the family, and there were only two others present including the undertaker. He doesn't mention Joseph, and the funeral itself which, far from including a long eulogy about Edgar's virtues, lasted maybe three minutes.

But whatever the historians' conclusions are about Edgar, research always has its unexpected rewards. For instance, right after the story about Joseph's recollections, one of the papers printed the "Jokes of the Day". Among these samples of 19th Century hilarity were:

Ardent Lover:	"If you could see my heart Belinda you would know how fondly ----."
Up-to-Date Girl:	(Producing a Camera) "I intend to see it, Hiram. Sit still, please."
Compulsory:	"Did you enjoy the opera?"
	"Yes, indeed, we had to. Our tickets cost a guinea apiece."
Winks:	Peculiar coincidence connected with that new tenor in our church choir
Binks:	What's that?
Winks:	He gets a tenner every time he sing.
"I'll bet her musical education cost a lot of money."
"Yes, you ought to hear her pronounce 'Wagner'."
A primadonna on the stage and a cat on the back fence are alike in one thing. They both sing operatic airs.
"I mean," said the ambitious young lawyer, "to be a United States senator or nothing."
"Why, Bill," said the man who had known the young lawyer when he wore knickerbockers, "Why, Bill, lots of fellers has been both."

Real knee-slappers.