"The Tortured Genius of Edgar Allan Poe" was the topic presented by Dr. Elliot Engel Thursday at Kosciusko Literacy Services' annual fundraiser at Tippecanoe Lake Country Club.

Rebecca Kubacki welcomed the group and thanked Cathy Teghtmeyer and Jan Monteith for their assistance as literacy leaders who planned the author dinner. Kubacki said, "Our fundraising efforts are on target - we've raised about $80,000 for literacy."

Brenda Rigdon, executive director of KLS, thanked event sponsors Mr. and Mrs. Howard Levin and R.R. Donnelley, corporate donors and reading sponsors. She introduced the president of the KLS board, William Baldwin, who gave the invocation.

The dinner featured Harvest Home chicken pie, made by members, family and friends of the Pierceton Presbyterian Church.

Engel's presentation on Poe provided insight into his tortured life. Engel said, "Edgar Allan Poe had the most awful, pathetic life, and all his writings were based on tragic events."

The tragedy started with Poe's mother, Elizabeth, who was "one of the most beautiful young women in the world." She was brought from England to America when she was 8 years old to become a stage star by age 10. At age 13, she married her first husband, an opening-act comedian, who died when she was 14.

The search for another opening act introduced her to David Poe, a young, good-looking dancer, who became her second husband. Edgar Poe was born in 1809. His father left them right after Edgar was born, and was found dead of alcoholism seven weeks later.

Elizabeth, now only 17 years old, gets the role of Juliet in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," and performs eight shows a week, with Edgar sitting in the center seat of the front row. Engel said, "For three years, he watches his mother commit suicide on the stage, then they'd go out to eat. That's the reason there are so many beautiful dead young women in his stories." They moved to Virginia, where his mother died of consumption when he was only 3-1/2. Because of the blood associated with death by consumption, Poe always used red, rather than black, to symbolize death.

A wealthy woman and patron of the theater, Frances Allan, wanted to adopt Edgar, but her husband wouldn't allow legal adoption. She did take him in, however, and he became known as Edgar Allan Poe. Her husband, John, hated Edgar so much that he took him to London to a church school. It was at this school that Poe's fascination with cemeteries and headstones was fostered, as the students were forced to use information on the headstones rather than books to learn concepts such as subtraction.

He was brought back to Virginia by seventh grade to attend school. At age 16, he fell in love with his friend Richard's mother, who died of a brain tumor. For a year, Poe walked around her tombstone every day - she was the second beautiful woman in his life to die.

The third tragic death in Poe's life was the death by consumption of his stepmother, Frances Allan, when he was 19. The fourth tragedy was when his young wife, Virginia, who he married when he was 27 and she was 13-1/2, also died of consumption.

Charles Dickens, who Poe met in 1847, possibly was the only positive influence in Poe's life. Because of something Dickens said, Poe changed a poem he had written from "Lenore" to "The Raven." The poem immediately sold, but because Poe didn't copyright it, he made no money.

After writing "Annabelle Lee," he received a favorable job offer in New York to edit a poetry publication. While changing trains in Baltimore, he got drunk and fell into a gutter. He was taken to a hospital, and three days later, he died at age 40. His work became famous six months after he died. Engel said, "More people in the world read Poe than any other author from the United States. Poe's reputation today is unbelievable." [[In-content Ad]]