In late 1829, a Baltimore publisher issued Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, attributed to “Edgar A. Poe.” With a touch of drama Poe declared himself “irrecoverably a poet,” savoring a favorable review from the irascible New England critic John Neal.

By 1830 Poe had secured a place in the entering class at West Point. Initially he flourished at the academy; his scholastic efforts earned commendations in mathematics and French, and he played occasional pranks while regaling classmates with clandestine “doggerel” about cadet life. But again he lacked adequate funds to meet living expenses. When Allan journeyed to New York City in October to remarry, he departed without contacting his foster son, and then refused further communication with him, the cadet grasped that he had been permanently disowned. Without an allowance or inheritance, Poe knew that he could never properly sustain himself as an officer, and resentment of Allan provoked his subsequent drinking and neglect of duty. He later claimed that he had no love of “dissipation” but had been victimized by Allan’s “parsimony.” After several weeks of missed roll calls, parades, and inspections, Poe faced a court-martial and was dismissed from the academy on February 18, 1831. But appreciative of Poe’s literary talents, the cadets subsidized the New York publication of Poems by Edgar A. Poe, which included “To Helen” and “Israfel.”

Sick and discouraged, Poe lingered in New York for several weeks, but finding no work he returned to Baltimore, residing with his grandmother, his aunt Maria Clemm, and her daughter Virginia. Poe also rejoined his older brother, Henry, a poet and former sailor then in the last stages of tuberculosis. Surrounded by illness and poverty, Poe replied to an announcement in a Philadelphia newspaper of a hundred-dollar premium for the “best American tale” by composing that summer and fall a handful of clever narratives set in the Old World, mostly satirical imitations of magazine fiction—a Gothic tale of revenge, a pseudobiblical farce, a spoof about the indignities of dying, and two separate fantasies about men bargaining with the devil for their souls. Poe reinvented himself as a magazinist under depressing circumstances: His brother died in August, and soon thereafter a cholera epidemic gripped Baltimore. That fall poor health and abject poverty impelled Poe’s penitent appeal to John Allan in which he acknowledged his “flagrant ingratitude”—an apology that Allan, then celebrating the birth of a legitimate male heir, rewarded with monetary assistance.

The new year brought some encouragement: Although Poe did not win the coveted literary prize, the Saturday Courier in January 1832 published his first prose tale, “Metzengerstein,” and four other stories subsequently appeared in print, perhaps bringing him a few dollars. In the same playful, parodic vein, Poe added several new tales to his portfolio and in August showed them to Lambert Wilmer, a Baltimore writer and editor. Still unable to find regular employment, though, Poe apparently tried his hand as a school-teacher, an editorial assistant, and a manual laborer at a brick kiln. He also began tutoring his young cousin, Virginia, a girl of sweetly sentimental temperament to whom he became emotionally attached. By May 1833 his accumulating cache of stories—now conceived as “Tales of the Arabesque” told by members of a literary club—numbered eleven, and in June, when the Baltimore Saturday Visiter announced prizes of fifty dollars in both fiction and poetry, Poe submitted six new pieces from a collection he rechristened “Tales of the Folio Club.” The selection committee found itself “wholly unprepared” for their wild novelty and selected “MS. Found in a Bottle” for the prize in fiction. Through this competition Poe met two influential men of letters, J. H. B. Latrobe and John Pendleton Kennedy, and in November, Kennedy himself delivered Poe’s manuscript collection to publisher Henry C. Carey in Philadelphia. One of Poe’s best “Folio Club” tales, a piece later titled “The Assignation,” soon appeared in Godey’s Lady’s Book, the first large-circulation periodical to feature his work.

 

A lawyer and novelist, Kennedy also became a mentor: He hired Poe to do odd jobs, gave professional advice, furnished new clothes, and provided occasional meals. He encouraged the younger writer to send his work to Thomas W. White, a Richmond editor who had just launched the Southern Literary Messenger. Poe needed a fresh start: John Allan’s death in March 1834 had ended any possibility of reconciliation, and his will contained no mention of his impoverished former ward. Moreover, despite Kennedy’s intervention, Carey seemed politely reluctant to publish the “Folio Club” tales. How Poe sustained himself during this period remains unclear; by 1835 his appearance was so “humiliating” that he declined a dinner invitation from Kennedy. But an important literary connection was already in the making: Poe’s shocking new tale, “Berenice,” had appeared in the March issue of the Messenger.