Fallen Angel - by Robert Morgan (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Over 170 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a figure of enduring fascination and speculation for readers, scholars, and devotees of the weird and macabre. In Fallen Angel, acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan offers a new biography of this gifted, complicated author. Focusing on Poe's personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores with depth and feeling"--

Book Synopsis

Over 170 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a figure of enduring fascination and speculation for readers, scholars, and devotees of the weird and macabre. In Fallen Angel, acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan offers a new biography of this gifted, complicated author.

Focusing on Poe's personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores with depth and feeling.

Review Quotes

"[with] interesting insights and suggestive glimpses . . . there is certainly much here that will be arresting and interesting to the scholar and enthusiast. Morgan is good at giving us Edgar through the eyes of those who knew him. . . . At its best Robert Morgan's prose has something of Poe's vivid intensity."--Time Literary Supplement

"New York Times bestselling novelist and distinguished professor emeritus Robert Morgan reexamines Poe's life in a well-crafted narrative of persistence. One of the book's strengths is its focus on women who played significant roles in Poe's life and influenced his art. Another strength is Morgan's skill in telling a tragic story that is relatable to readers today. . . . This compelling, sympathetic biography will add to Poe's popular appeal and literary reputation. Recommended."--CHOICE

"As a poet and novelist, Robert Morgan deftly explains the subtle, subliminal effects of Poe's texts, and he counters the gloomy emphasis of many earlier biographies by underscoring the author's courage in the face of recurrent adversity."--J. Gerald Kennedy, author of Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing

"Combining, with a light touch, shrewd psychological analysis and literary appreciation, highlighting Poe's journalistic career and the interest of many lesser-known writings, this masterful exploration of the ways in which the incidents of Poe's life inform his work has much to engage and delight any fan of Poe."--Jonathan Culler, author of Theory of the Lyric

"Morgan does what literary biography ought always to do, mixing a facility for humane storytelling with sound scholarly analysis. He captures Poe's haunted world, where what is strange is beautiful and what is beautiful is strange."--Andrew Burstein, author of The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving

"Morgan masterfully weaves together the threads of Poe's life, literature, and legacy while uncovering the love-starved romantic too often hidden behind his popular image as a horror master."--Christopher P. Semtner, curator, Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Richmond, Virginia

About the Author

Robert Morgan has published more than twenty-five books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including the bestselling Boone: A Biography. His novel Gap Creek was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book, and an Oprah's Book Club selection. He is the Kappa Alpha Professor of English Emeritus at Cornell University.