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BRIEF STORY OF A 'LIFE CUT SHORT'

Ackroyd's Brief Lives series continues with 'Poe: A Life Cut Short'"'

Date published: 2/8/2009

WHETHER this biography suc- ceeds because Poe's life is inherently fascinating or because Peter Ackroyd's prose is simply scintillating needn't be decided, since both contribute.

"Poe: A Life Cut Short" is a compact and useful addition to Ackroyd's series of Brief Lives aimed for the general reader. Only the subtitle is off the mark. Poe's life was not so much cut short as blighted in the cradle. His actress mother died of tuberculosis soon after his birth; his nomadic father simply disappeared. His foster mother, to whom he was devoted, also succumbed to disease, as did most of the women he became attached to.

Gifted and eager to learn, he aspired early on to writing poetry, but he squandered support and lived his whole life in debt. His total literary earnings came to $300. Without copyright protection, Americans could not compete with the free flow of fiction from England.

His struggles for autonomy were thwarted by his excessive drinking and gambling. He started promisingly at the University of Virginia, but dropped out after a year. He joined the Army and moved up the ranks, then resigned to enter West Point. There, he quickly grew bored and provoked his dismissal. Could our modern arsenal of mood regulators have saved him from an apparent bipolar condition without sacrificing his genius? In any case, he led a life as strange as those portrayed in his stories.

Dan Dervin is a freelance writer in Fredericksburg.

POE: A LIFE CUT SHORTBy Peter Ackroyd(Doubleday, $21.95)

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Date published: 2/8/2009