"Written by one of the world's leading experts on the life and literature of Edgar Allan Poe, this biography is a rich and rewarding study for the general reader as well as for the seasoned scholar. Richard Kopley combines a biographical narrative of Poe's enduring challenges-including his difficult foster father, his personal losses, his great struggles with depression and alcoholism, and the poverty that dogged his existence-with close readings of his work that focus not only on plot, character, and theme but also on language, allusion, and structure in a way that enhances our understanding of both. While incorporating past Poe scholarship, this volume also relates unknown stories of Poe culled from privately held letters unavailable to previous biographers, presenting a range of groundbreaking archival discoveries that illuminates the man and his oeuvre in ways never before possible"-- Provided by publisher