ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh
Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll
Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt
Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx
Yy	Zz

A (named a /ˈeɪ/, plural aes^[1]) is the first letter and a vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.

Origins[link]

The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also called 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet^[2] (which, by consisting entirely of consonants, is an abjad rather than a true alphabet). In turn, the origin of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Egyptian	Phoenician aleph	Greek Alpha	Etruscan A	Roman/Cyrillic A

In 1600 B.C., the Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the base for some later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the Hebrew or Arabic aleph.

Blackletter A	Uncial A	Another Blackletter A
Modern Roman A	Modern Italic A	Modern Script A

When the ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for the glottal stop—the first phoneme of the Phoenician pronunciation of the letter, and the sound that the letter denoted in Phoenician and other Semitic languages—so they used an adaptation of the sign to represent the vowel /a/, and gave it the similar name of alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the Greek Dark Ages, dating to the 8th century BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, although many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set.

The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write the Latin language, and the resulting letter was preserved in the Latin alphabet used to write many languages, including English.

Typographic variants include a double-story a and single-story ɑ.

The letter has two minuscule (lower-case) forms. The form used in most current handwriting consists of a circle and vertical stroke ("ɑ"), called Latin alpha or "script a". This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the hands of dark-age Irish and English writers.^[2] Most printed material uses a form consisting of a small loop with an arc over it ("a"). Both derive from the majuscule (capital) form. In Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop, as demonstrated by the Uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical. In some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form.

Use in English[link]

In English, the letter A currently represents six different vowel sounds: A by itself frequently denotes the near-open front unrounded vowel (/æ/) as in pad; the open back unrounded vowel (/ɑː/) as in father, its original, Latin and Greek, sound; a closer, further fronted sound as in "hare", which developed as the sound progressed from "father" to "ace";^[2] in concert with a later orthographic vowel, the diphthong /eɪ/ as in ace and major, due to effects of the great vowel shift; the more rounded form in "water" or its closely related cousin, found in "was".^[2]

"A" is the third most commonly used letter in English, and the second most common in Spanish and French. In one study, on average, about 3.68% of letters used in English tend to be ⟨a⟩, while the number is 6.22% in Spanish and 3.95% in French.^[3]

"A" is often used to denote something or someone of a better or more prestigious quality or status: A-, A or A+, the best grade that can be assigned by teachers for students' schoolwork; A grade for clean restaurants; A-List celebrities, etc. Such associations can have a motivating effect as exposure to the letter A has been found to improve performance, when compared with other letters.^[4]

Use in other languages[link]

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, A denotes an open unrounded vowel: /a/, /ä/, or /ɑ/. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, variants of "a" denote various vowels. In X-SAMPA, capital "A" denotes the open back unrounded vowel and lowercase "a" denotes the open front unrounded vowel.

Related letters and other similar characters[link]

Different glyphs of the lower case letter A.

• Α α : Greek letter Alpha
• А а : Cyrillic letter A
• Ɑ ɑ : Latin letter Alpha / Script A
• ɐ : a turned lowercase letter A, used by the International Phonetic Alphabet for the near-open central vowel
• ∀ : a turned capital letter A, used in predicate logic to specify universal quantification
• ª : an ordinal indicator
• Æ æ : Latin letter Æ

Computing codes[link]

¹ and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations[link]

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Alpha	·–

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	Braille

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: A

Look up A or a in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• History of the Alphabet
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • “A” in A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "A" (entry). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  • "A". The New Student's Reference Work. Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co. 1914.
  • "A". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.

Edgar Allan Poe
1848 "Ultima Thule" daguerreotype of Poe
Born	Edgar Poe (1809-01-19)January 19, 1809 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	October 7, 1849(1849-10-07) (aged 40) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe
Signature

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.^[1] He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.^[2]

He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The Raven", to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.^[3]

Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

Life and career[link]

Early life[link]

This plaque marks the approximate location^[4] where Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe.^[5] Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play the couple was performing in 1809.^[6] His father abandoned their family in 1810,^[7] and his mother died a year later from consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis). Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.^[8] The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name "Edgar Allan Poe",^[9] though they never formally adopted him.^[10]

The Allan family had Poe baptized in the Episcopal Church in 1812. John Allan alternately spoiled and aggressively disciplined his foster son.^[9] The family, including Poe and Allan's wife, Frances Valentine Allan, sailed to Britain in 1815. Poe attended the grammar school in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) for a short period in 1815, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until summer 1817. He was subsequently entered at the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb four miles (6 km) north of London.^[11]

Poe moved back with the Allans to Richmond, Virginia in 1820. In 1824 Poe served as the lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.^[12] In March 1825, John Allan's uncle^[13] and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died and left Allan several acres of real estate. The inheritance was estimated at $750,000. By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.^[14] Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered at the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826 to study languages.^[15] The university, in its infancy, was established on the ideals of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate.^[16] During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased.^[17] Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.^[18] At some point he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet.^[19]

Military career[link]

Poe was first stationed at Boston's Fort Independence while in the army.

Unable to support himself, on May 27, 1827, Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private. Using the name "Edgar A. Perry", he claimed he was 22 years old even though he was 18.^[20] He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for five dollars a month.^[18] That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian". Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received virtually no attention.^[21] Poe's regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina and traveled by ship on the brig Waltham on November 8, 1827. Poe was promoted to "artificer", an enlisted tradesman who prepared shells for artillery, and had his monthly pay doubled.^[22] After serving for two years and attaining the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank a noncommissioned officer can achieve), Poe sought to end his five-year enlistment early. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard. Howard would only allow Poe to be discharged if he reconciled with John Allan and wrote a letter to Allan, who was unsympathetic. Several months passed and pleas to Allan were ignored; Allan may not have written to Poe even to make him aware of his foster mother's illness. Frances Allan died on February 28, 1829, and Poe visited the day after her burial. Perhaps softened by his wife's death, John Allan agreed to support Poe's attempt to be discharged in order to receive an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.^[23]

Poe finally was discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.^[24] Before entering West Point, Poe moved back to Baltimore for a time, to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.^[25] Meanwhile, Poe published his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, in Baltimore in 1829.^[26]

Poe traveled to West Point and matriculated as a cadet on July 1, 1830.^[27] In October 1830, John Allan married his second wife, Louisa Patterson.^[28] The marriage, and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning Poe.^[29] Poe decided to leave West Point by purposely getting court-martialed. On February 8, 1831, he was tried for gross neglect of duty and disobedience of orders for refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. Poe tactically pled not guilty to induce dismissal, knowing he would be found guilty.^[30]

He left for New York in February 1831, and released a third volume of poems, simply titled Poems. The book was financed with help from his fellow cadets at West Point, many of whom donated 75 cents to the cause, raising a total of $170. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had been writing about commanding officers.^[31] Printed by Elam Bliss of New York, it was labeled as "Second Edition" and included a page saying, "To the U.S. Corps of Cadets this volume is respectfully dedicated." The book once again reprinted the long poems "Tamerlane" and "Al Aaraaf" but also six previously unpublished poems including early versions of "To Helen", "Israfel", and "The City in the Sea".^[32] He returned to Baltimore, to his aunt, brother and cousin, in March 1831. His elder brother Henry, who had been in ill health in part due to problems with alcoholism, died on August 1, 1831.^[33]

Publishing career[link]

After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to start his career as a writer. He chose a difficult time in American publishing to do so.^[34] He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone^[2][35] and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law.^[36] Publishers often pirated copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans.^[35] The industry was also particularly hurt by the Panic of 1837.^[37] Despite a booming growth in American periodicals around this time period, fueled in part by new technology, many did not last beyond a few issues^[38] and publishers often refused to pay their writers or paid them much later than they promised.^[39] Poe, throughout his attempts to live as a writer, had to repeatedly resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.^[40]

Poe married his 13-year old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Her early death may have inspired some of his writing.

After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama, Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short story "MS. Found in a Bottle".^[41] The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835,^[42] but was discharged within a few weeks for being caught drunk by his boss.^[43] Returning to Baltimore, Poe secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. He was 26 and she was 13, though she is listed on the marriage certificate as being 21.^[44] Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500.^[5] He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he had a second wedding ceremony in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.^[45]

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was published and widely reviewed in 1838.^[46] In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a trenchant critic that he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger. Also in 1839, the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes, though he made little money off of it and it received mixed reviews.^[47] Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham's Magazine.^[48]

In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start his own journal, The Stylus.^[49] Originally, Poe intended to call the journal The Penn, as it would have been based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the June 6, 1840 issue of Philadelphia's Saturday Evening Post, Poe bought advertising space for his prospectus: "Prospectus of the Penn Magazine, a Monthly Literary journal to be edited and published in the city of Philadelphia by Edgar A. Poe."^[50] The journal was never produced before Poe's death. Around this time, he attempted to secure a position with the Tyler administration, claiming he was a member of the Whig Party.^[51] He hoped to be appointed to the Custom House in Philadelphia with help from President Tyler's son Robert,^[52] an acquaintance of Poe's friend Frederick Thomas.^[53] Poe failed to show up for a meeting with Thomas to discuss the appointment in mid-September 1842, claiming to be sick, though Thomas believed he was drunk.^[54] Though he was promised an appointment, all positions were filled by others.^[55]

Poe spent the last few years of his life in this small cottage in the Bronx, New York.

One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat.^[56] She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York, where he worked briefly at the Evening Mirror before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal and, later, sole owner.^[57] There he alienated himself from other writers by publicly accusing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism, though Longfellow never responded.^[58] On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became a popular sensation. Though it made Poe a household name almost instantly,^[59] he was paid only $9 for its publication.^[60] It was concurrently published in The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".^[61]

The Broadway Journal failed in 1846.^[57] Poe moved to a cottage in the Fordham section of The Bronx, New York. That home, known today as the "Poe Cottage", is on the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road. Virginia died there on January 30, 1847.^[62] Biographers and critics often suggest Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife.^[63]

Increasingly unstable after his wife's death, Poe attempted to court the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, who lived in Providence, Rhode Island. Their engagement failed, purportedly because of Poe's drinking and erratic behavior. However, there is also strong evidence that Whitman's mother intervened and did much to derail their relationship.^[64] Poe then returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Royster.^[65]

Death[link]

Edgar Allan Poe is buried in Baltimore, Maryland. The circumstances and cause of his death remain uncertain.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker.^[66] He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.^[67] Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul."^[67] All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost.^[68] Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.^[69] The actual cause of death remains a mystery.^[70] Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,^[3] cholera^[71] and rabies.^[72] One theory, dating from 1872, indicates that cooping – in which unwilling citizens who were forced to vote for a particular candidate were occasionally killed – was the cause of Poe's death. ^[73].

Griswold's "Memoir"[link]

The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it."^[74] "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.^[75]

Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence.^[75] Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict.^[76] Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well,^[77] but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man.^[78] Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.^[79]

Literary style and themes[link]

1860s portrait by Oscar Halling after an 1849 daguerreotype

Genres[link]

Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic,^[80] a genre he followed to appease the public taste.^[81] His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning.^[82] Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism,^[83] which Poe strongly disliked.^[84] He referred to followers of the movement as "Frog-Pondians" after the pond on Boston Common.^[85][86] and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run mad,"^[87] lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake."^[84] Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them."^[88]

Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity.^[81] In fact, "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published,^[89] and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre.^[90] Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".^[91]

Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes.^[92] To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology^[93] and physiognomy.^[94]

Literary theory[link]

Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essays such as "The Poetic Principle".^[95] He disliked didacticism^[96] and allegory,^[97] though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art.^[98] He believed that quality work should be brief and focus on a specific single effect.^[95] To that end, he believed that the writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea.^[99]

In "The Philosophy of Composition", an essay in which Poe describes his method in writing "The Raven", he claims to have strictly followed this method. It has been questioned, however, if he really followed this system. T. S. Eliot said: "It is difficult for us to read that essay without reflecting that if Poe plotted out his poem with such calculation, he might have taken a little more pains over it: the result hardly does credit to the method."^[100] Biographer Joseph Wood Krutch described the essay as "a rather highly ingenious exercise in the art of rationalization".^[101]

Legacy[link]

Illustration by French impressionist Édouard Manet for the Stéphane Mallarmé translation of "The Raven", 1875. Digitally restored.

Literary influence[link]

During his lifetime, Poe was mostly recognized as a literary critic. Fellow critic James Russell Lowell called him "the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America", suggesting – rhetorically – that he occasionally used prussic acid instead of ink.^[102] Poe's caustic reviews earned him the epithet "Tomahawk Man". A favorite target of Poe's criticism was Boston's then acclaimed poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who was often defended by his literary friends in what would later be called "The Longfellow War". Poe accused Longfellow of "the heresy of the didactic”, writing poetry that was preachy, derivative, and thematically plagiarized. Poe correctly predicted that Longfellow's reputation and style of poetry would decline, concluding that "We grant him high qualities, but deny him the Future".^[103]

Poe was also known as a writer of fiction and became one of the first American authors of the 19th century to become more popular in Europe than in the United States.^[104] Poe is particularly respected in France, in part due to early translations by Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire's translations became definitive renditions of Poe's work throughout Europe.^[105]

Poe's early detective fiction tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?"^[106] The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgars".^[107] Poe's work also influenced science fiction, notably Jules Verne, who wrote a sequel to Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket called An Antarctic Mystery, also known as The Sphinx of the Ice Fields.^[108] Science fiction author H. G. Wells noted, "Pym tells what a very intelligent mind could imagine about the south polar region a century ago."^[109]

Like many famous artists, Poe's works have spawned innumerable imitators.^[110] One interesting trend among imitators of Poe, however, has been claims by clairvoyants or psychics to be "channeling" poems from Poe's spirit. One of the most notable of these was Lizzie Doten, who in 1863 published Poems from the Inner Life, in which she claimed to have "received" new compositions by Poe's spirit. The compositions were re-workings of famous Poe poems such as "The Bells", but which reflected a new, positive outlook.^[111]

Edgar Allan Poe photographed circa 1849

Even so, Poe has received not only praise, but criticism as well. This is partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and its influence upon his reputation.^[104] William Butler Yeats was occasionally critical of Poe and once called him "vulgar".^[112] Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson reacted to "The Raven" by saying, "I see nothing in it"^[113] and derisively referred to Poe as "the jingle man".^[114] Aldous Huxley wrote that Poe's writing "falls into vulgarity" by being "too poetical"—the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger.^[115]

It is believed that only 12 copies of Poe's first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, have survived. In December 2009, one copy sold at Christie's, New York for $662,500, a record price paid for a work of American literature.^[116]

Physics and cosmology[link]

Eureka: A Prose Poem, an essay written in 1848, included a cosmological theory that presaged the Big Bang theory by 80 years,^[117][118] as well as the first plausible solution to Olbers' paradox.^[119][120] Poe eschewed the scientific method in Eureka and instead wrote from pure intuition.^[121] For this reason, he considered it a work of art, not science,^[121] but insisted that it was still true^[122] and considered it to be his career masterpiece.^[123] Even so, Eureka is full of scientific errors. In particular, Poe's suggestions opposed Newtonian principles regarding the density and rotation of planets.^[124]

Cryptography[link]

Poe had a keen interest in cryptography. He had placed a notice of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers, which he proceeded to solve.^[125] In July 1841, Poe had published an essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine. Realizing the public interest in the topic, he wrote "The Gold-Bug" incorporating ciphers as part of the story.^[126] Poe's success in cryptography relied not so much on his knowledge of that field (his method was limited to the simple substitution cryptogram), as on his knowledge of the magazine and newspaper culture. His keen analytical abilities, which were so evident in his detective stories, allowed him to see that the general public was largely ignorant of the methods by which a simple substitution cryptogram can be solved, and he used this to his advantage.^[125] The sensation Poe created with his cryptography stunt played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines.^[127]

Poe had an influence on cryptography beyond increasing public interest in his lifetime. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, was heavily influenced by Poe.^[128] Friedman's initial interest in cryptography came from reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child—interest he later put to use in deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II.^[129]

In popular culture[link]

As a character[link]

The historical Edgar Allan Poe has appeared as a fictionalized character, often representing the "mad genius" or "tormented artist" and exploiting his personal struggles.^[130] Many such depictions also blend in with characters from his stories, suggesting Poe and his characters share identities.^[131] Often, fictional depictions of Poe use his mystery-solving skills in such novels as The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.^[132]

Preserved homes, landmarks, and museums[link]

The Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia is one of several preserved former residences of Poe

No childhood home of Poe is still standing, including the Allan family's Moldavia estate. The oldest standing home in Richmond, the Old Stone House, is in use as the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, though Poe never lived there. The collection includes many items Poe used during his time with the Allan family and also features several rare first printings of Poe works. The dorm room Poe is believed to have used while studying at the University of Virginia in 1826 is preserved and available for visits. Its upkeep is now overseen by a group of students and staff known as the Raven Society.^[133]

The earliest surviving home in which Poe lived is in Baltimore, preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia (as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe).^[134] It is open to the public and is also the home of the Edgar Allan Poe Society. Of the several homes that Poe, his wife Virginia, and his mother-in-law Maria rented in Philadelphia, only the last house has survived. The Spring Garden home, where the author lived in 1843–1844, is today preserved by the National Park Service as the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site.^[135] Poe's final home is preserved as the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx, New York.^[62]

In Boston, a commemorative plaque on Boylston Street is a couple of blocks away from the actual location of Poe's birth.^{[136][137][138][4]} The house which was his birthplace at 62 Carver Street no longer exists; also, the street has since been renamed "Charles Street South".^[139][140] A "square" at the intersection of Broadway, Fayette, and Carver Streets had once been named in his honor,^[141] but it disappeared when the streets were rearranged. In 2009, the intersection of Charles and Boylston Streets was newly designated "Edgar Allan Poe Square".^[142]

Other Poe landmarks include a building in the Upper West Side, where Poe temporarily lived when he first moved to New York. A plaque suggests that Poe wrote "The Raven" here. The bar where legend says Poe was last seen drinking before his death still stands in Fells Point in Baltimore, Maryland. The drinking establishment is now known as "The Horse You Came In On", and local lore insists that a ghost they call "Edgar" haunts the rooms above.^[143]

Poe Toaster[link]

Adding to the mystery surrounding Poe's death, an unknown visitor affectionately referred to as the "Poe Toaster" paid homage to Poe's grave annually beginning in 1949. As the tradition carried on for more than 60 years, it is likely that the "Poe Toaster" was actually several individuals, though the tribute was always the same. Every January 19, in the early hours of the morning, the person made a toast of cognac to Poe's original grave marker and left three roses. Members of the Edgar Allan Poe Society in Baltimore helped protect this tradition for decades. On August 15, 2007, Sam Porpora, a former historian at the Westminster Church in Baltimore where Poe is buried, claimed that he had started the tradition in the 1960s. Porpora said the claim that the tradition began in 1949 was a hoax in order to raise money and enhance the profile of the church. His story has not been confirmed,^[144] and some details he gave to the press have been pointed out as factually inaccurate.^[145] The Poe Toaster's last appearance was on January 19, 2009, the day of Poe's bicentennial.

Selected list of works[link]

Other works

• Politian (1835) – Poe's only play
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) – Poe's only complete novel
• "The Balloon-Hoax" (1844) – A journalistic hoax printed as a true story
• "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) – Essay
• Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848) – Essay
• "The Poetic Principle" (1848) – Essay
• "The Light-House" (1849) – Poe's last incomplete work

See also[link]

	Edgar Allan Poe portal
	Horror portal
	Poetry portal
	Biography portal

• Edgar Allan Poe and music
• List of coupled cousins
• USS E.A. Poe (IX-103)

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Allen, Hervey (1927). "Introduction". The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: P. F. Collier & Son. 
• Associated Press (August 15, 2007). "Man Reveals Legend of Mystery Visitor to Edgar Allan Poe's Grave". http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293413,00.html. Retrieved 2007-12-15. 
• Benitez, R, Michael (September 15, 1996). "Poe's Death Is Rewritten as Case of Rabies, Note Telltale Alcohol". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/15/us/poe-s-death-is-rewritten-as-case-of-rabies-not-telltale-alcohol.html.  Based on "A 39-year-old man with mental status change". Maryland Medical Journal 45: 765–769. 1996. 
• Benton, Richard P. (1987). "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards". In Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV. Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society. pp. 1–25. ISBN 978-0-9616449-1-8. http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19871c.htm. 
• Bramsback, Birgit (1970). "The Final Illness and Death of Edgar Allan Poe: An Attempt at Reassessment". Studia Neophilologica (University of Uppsala) XLII: 40 
• BronxHistoricalSociety.org (2007). "Edgar Allan Poe Cottage". http://web.archive.org/web/20071011072300/http://bronxhistoricalsociety.org/about/poecottage.html.  Archived from the original on 2007-10-11.
• Burns, Niccole (November 15, 2006). "Poe wrote most important works in Philadelphia". School of Communication — University of Miami. http://com.miami.edu/parks/philapoeauthor.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-13. 
• Cappi, Alberto (1994). "Edgar Allan Poe's Physical Cosmology". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 35: 177–192. Bibcode 1994QJRAS..35..177C 
• Canada, Mark, ed. (1997). "Edgar Allan Poe Chronology". Canada's America. http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/17841865/lit/poe.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-03. 
• CrimeLibrary.com (2008). "Death Suspicion Cholera". http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/celebrity/edgar_allan_poe/5.html. Retrieved 2008-05-09. 
• Carlson, Eric Walter (1996). A Companion to Poe Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-26506-8. http://books.google.com/?id=nMHFGbxYhEMC&pg=PA476&lpg=PA476&dq=%22lizzie+doten%22+poe. Retrieved 2007-06-03. 
• Cornelius, Kay (2002). "Biography of Edgar Allan Poe". In Harold Bloom. Bloom's BioCritiques: Edgar Allan Poe. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7910-6173-2. 
• Edgar Allan Poe Society (2007). "The Baltimore Poe House and Museum". http://www.eapoe.org/balt/poehse.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-13. 
• Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV (1993). "Poe's 'Metzengerstein': Not a Hoax (1971)". On Poe: The Best from American Literature. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 142–149. ISBN 978-0-8223-1311-3. 
• Foye, Raymond, ed. (1980). The Unknown Poe (Paperback ed.). San Francisco, CA: City Lights. ISBN 0-87286-110-4. 
• Frank, Frederick S.; Magistrale, Anthony (1997). The Poe Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-27768-9. 
• Friedman, William F. (1993). "Edgar Allan Poe, Cryptographer (1936)". On Poe: The Best from American Literature. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. pp. 40–54. ISBN 978-0-8223-1311-3. 
• Gargano, James W. (1967). "The Question of Poe's Narrators". In Regan, Robert. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. pp. 165. ISBN 978-0-13-684963-6. 
• Glenn, Joshua (April 9, 2007). "The house of Poe – mystery solved!". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/brainiac/2007/04/_a_globe_reader.html. 
• Grayson, Eric (2005). "Weird Science, Weirder Unity: Phrenology and Physiognomy in Edgar Allan Poe". Mode 1: 56–77. http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/publications/mode/documents/grayson.html. 
• Hall, Wiley (August 15, 2007). "Poe Fan Takes Credit for Grave Legend". Associated Press. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-08-15_D8R1O6LO0&show_article=1&cat=breaking. 
• Harner, Gary Wayne (1990). "Edgar Allan Poe in France: Baudelaire's Labor of Love". In Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV. Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society. ISBN 978-0-9616449-2-5. 
• Harrison, Edward (1987). Darkness at Night: A Riddle of the Universe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-19270-6. 
• Harrowitz, Nancy (1984), "The Body of the Detective Model: Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe", in Umberto Eco; Thomas Sebeok, The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce, Bloomington, IN: History Workshop, Indiana University Press, pp. 179–197, ISBN 978-0-253-35235-4 . Harrowitz discusses Poe's "tales of ratiocination" in the light of Charles Sanders Peirce's logic of making good guesses or abductive reasoning.
• Hayes, Kevin J. (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79326-1. 
• Hecker, William J. (2005), Private Perry and Mister Poe: The West Point Poems, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, ISBN 978-0-8071-3054-4 
• Hoffman, Daniel (1998) [1972]. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-2321-8. 
• Hungerford, Edward (1930). "Poe and Phrenology". American Literature 1: 209–231. 
• Huxley, Aldous (1967). "Vulgarity in Literature". In Regan, Robert. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. pp. 32. ISBN 978-0-13-684963-6. 
• Jannaccone, Pasquale (translated by Peter Mitilineos) (1974). "The Aesthetics of Edgar Poe". Poe Studies 7 (1) 
• Kagle, Steven E. (1990). "The Corpse Within Us". In Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV. Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society. ISBN 978-0-9616449-2-5. 
• Kennedy, J. Gerald (1987). Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03773-9. 
• Koster, Donald N. (2002). "Influences of Transcendentalism on American Life and Literature". In Galens, David. Literary Movements for Students Vol. 1.. Detroit: Thompson Gale. 
• Krutch, Joseph Wood (1926). Edgar Allan Poe: A Study in Genius. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.  (1992 reprint: ISBN 978-0-7812-6835-6)
• Lake, Matt (2006). Weird Maryland. Nwe York: Sterling Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4027-3906-4. 
• Ljunquist, Kent (2002). "The poet as critic". In Hayes, Kevin J.. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 7–20. ISBN 978-0-521-79727-6. 
• Maslin, Janet (June 6, 2006). "The Poe Shadow". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/arts/06iht-bookwed.1903554.html. Retrieved 2007-10-13. 
• Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy (Paperback ed.). New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 978-0-8154-1038-6. 
• Neimeyer, Mark (2002). "Poe and Popular Culture". In Hayes, Kevin J.. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 205–224. ISBN 978-0-521-79727-6. 
• Nelson, Randy F. (1981). The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-86576-008-0. 
• New York Daily News (December 5, 2009). "Edgar Allan Poe's first book from 1827 sells for 662,500; record price for American literature". http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/12/05/2009-12-05_rare_poe_book_scares_up_662g.html. Retrieved 2009-12-24. 
• New York Times (May 20, 1894). "Emerson's Estimate of Poe". http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A03E5D91630E033A25753C2A9639C94659ED7CF. Retrieved 2008-03-02. 
• Ostram, John Ward (1987). "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards". In Fisher, Benjamin Franklin IV. Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society. pp. 37–47. ISBN 978-0-9616449-1-8. http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19871e.htm. 
• Poe, Edgar Allan (November 1847). "Tale-Writing—Nathaniel Hawthorne". Godey's Ladies Book: 252–256. http://www.eapoe.org/works/CRITICSM/GLB47HN1.HTM. Retrieved 2007-03-24. 
• PoeMuseum.org (2006). "Celebrate Edgar Allan Poe’s 197th Birthday at the Poe museum". http://web.archive.org/web/20090105212647/http://www.poemuseum.org./news_and_events/archive_2006.html.  Archived from the original "News and Events" on 2009-01-05.
• Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5730-0. http://eapoe.org/papers/misc1921/quinn00c.htm.  (Originally published in 1941 by New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.)
• The Raven Society (2007). "Homepage". University of Virginia. http://www.uvaravensociety.com/. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
• Rombeck, Terry (January 22, 2005). "Poe's little-known science book reprinted". Lawrence Journal-World & News. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/jan/22/poes_littleknown_science/ 
• Rosenheim, Shawn James (1997). The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5332-6. 
• Royot, Daniel (2002), "Poe's Humor", in Hayes, Kevin J., The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–71, ISBN 978-0-521-79326-1 
• Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance (Paperback ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-092331-0. 
• Smoot, George; Davidson, Keay (1994). Wrinkles in Time (Reprint ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-380-72044-6. 
• Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (Paperback ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0-8160-4161-9. 
• Stableford, Brian (2003). "Science fiction before the genre". In James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–31. ISBN 978-0-521-01657-5. 
• Tresch, John (2002). "Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction". In Hayes, Kevin J.. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 113–132. ISBN 978-0-521-79326-1. 
• Van Hoy, David C. (February 18, 2007). "The Fall of the House of Edgar". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/02/18/the_fall_of_the_house_of_edgar/. 
• Walsh, John Evangelist (2000) [1968]. Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances behind 'The Mystery of Marie Roget'. New York: St. Martins Minotaur. ISBN 978-0-8135-0567-1.  (1968 edition printed by Rutgers University Press)
• Weekes, Karen (2002). "Poe's feminIne ideal". In Hayes, Kevin J.. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 148–162. ISBN 978-0-521-79326-1. 
• Whalen, Terance (2001). "Poe and the American Publishing Industry". In Kennedy, J. Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 63–94. ISBN 978-0-19-512150-6. 
• Wilbur, Richard (1967). "The House of Poe". In Regan, Robert. Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. pp. 99. ISBN 978-0-13-684963-6. 

Further reading[link]

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Ted Bundy
In custody, Florida, July 27, 1978 (State Archives of Florida)
Background information
Birth name	Theodore Robert Cowell
Also known as	Kenneth Misner Chris Hagen Richard Burton Officer Roseland Rolf Miller[1]
Born	(1946-11-24)November 24, 1946 Burlington, Vermont
Died	January 24, 1989(1989-01-24) (aged 42) Florida State Prison, Bradford County, Florida
Cause of death	Execution by electric chair
Conviction	Murder, Aggravated kidnapping
Sentence	Death
Killings
Number of victims	30–100+
Country	United States
State(s)	Washington, Utah, Florida, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, California
Date apprehended	August 16, 1975; escaped December 30, 1977; re-apprehended February 15, 1978

Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s, and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed shortly before his execution to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978; the true total remains unknown, and could be much higher.

Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic by his young female victims, traits he exploited in winning their trust. He typically approached them in public places and feigned injury or disability, or impersonated an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them at a more secluded location. He sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes for hours at a time, grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses until putrefaction and destruction by wild animals made further interaction impossible. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept some of the severed heads in his apartment for a period of time as mementos. On a few occasions he simply broke into dwellings in the dead of night and bludgeoned victims as they slept.

Initially charged in Utah in 1975 and convicted of aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault, Bundy became linked to a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in multiple states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two dramatic escapes and committed multiple additional assaults, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in Florida in 1978. He received three death sentences in two separate trials for the Florida homicides.

Ted Bundy died in the electric chair at Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida on January 24, 1989. Biographer Ann Rule described him as "... a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death, and even after."^[2] He once called himself "..the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet."^[3][4] Attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, agreed. "Ted," she wrote, "was the very definition of heartless evil."^[5]

Early life[link]

Childhood[link]

Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers (now the Lund Family Center^[6]) in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell (known for most of her life as Louise). The identity of his father has never been determined with certainty. His birth certificate assigns paternity to a salesman and Air Force veteran named Lloyd Marshall,^[7] but Louise later claimed that she was seduced by "a sailor" whose name may have been Jack Worthington.^[8] Her family expressed suspicions that the father may actually have been Louise's own violent, abusive father, Samuel Cowell.^[9] For the first three years of his life Bundy lived in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandparents, Samuel and Eleanor Cowell, who raised him as their son to avoid the social stigma that accompanied illegitimate birth at the time. Family, friends, and even young Ted were told that his grandparents were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. Eventually he discovered the truth, but how and when is not clear. He told his girlfriend that a cousin showed him a copy of his birth certificate after calling him a "bastard",^[10] but he told biographers Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth that he found the certificate himself.^[11] Biographer and true crime writer Ann Rule, who knew Bundy personally, believes that he tracked down his original birth record in Vermont in 1969.^[12] Bundy expressed a lifelong resentment toward his mother for lying about his true parentage and leaving him to discover it for himself.^[13]

While Bundy spoke warmly of his grandparents in some interviews^[14] and told Ann Rule that he "identified with", "respected", and "clung to" his grandfather,^[15] he and other family members told attorneys in 1987 that Samuel Cowell was a tyrannical bully and a bigot who hated blacks, Italians, Catholics, and Jews, beat his wife and the family dog, and swung neighborhood cats by their tails. He once threw Louise's younger sister Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping.^[16] He sometimes spoke aloud to unseen presences.^[17] At least once he flew into a violent rage when the question of Ted's paternity was raised.^[16] Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent electroconvulsive therapy for depression^[17] and feared leaving their house toward the end of her life.^[18] Ted occasionally exhibited disturbing behavior, even at that early age. Julia recalled awakening one day from a nap to find herself surrounded by knives from the Cowell kitchen; her three-year-old nephew was standing by the bed, smiling.^[19]

In 1950 Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson, dropped her first name Eleanor,^[20] and at the urging of multiple family members,^[21] left Philadelphia with her son to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in Tacoma, Washington. In 1951 Louise met Johnny Culpepper Bundy, a hospital cook, at an adult singles night at Tacoma's First Methodist Church.^[22] They married later that year and Johnny Bundy formally adopted Ted.^[22] Johnny and Louise conceived four children of their own, and though Johnny Bundy tried to include his stepson in camping trips and other family activities, Ted remained distant from his stepfather. He later complained to his girlfriend that Johnny wasn't his real father, "wasn't very bright", and "didn't make much money."^[23]

Bundy's Tacoma recollections varied from biographer to biographer: To Michaud and Aynesworth he described roaming his neighborhood, picking through trash barrels in search of pictures of naked women.^[24] To Polly Nelson he spoke of perusing detective magazines, crime novels, and true crime documentaries for stories involving sexual violence, particularly when illustrated with pictures of dead or maimed bodies;^[25] yet in a letter to Rule he asserted that he "never, ever read fact-detective magazines, and shuddered at the thought" that anyone would.^[26] To Michaud, he described consuming large quantities of alcohol and "canvass[ing] the community" late at night in search of undraped windows where he could observe women undressing, or "whatever [else] could be seen."^[27]

Accounts of his social life also varied: He told Michaud and Aynsworth that he "chose to be alone" as an adolescent because he was unable to understand interpersonal relationships.^[28] Though he maintained a façade of social activity in school, he claimed he had no natural sense of how to develop friendships. "I didn't know what made people want to be friends," he said. "I didn't know what underlay social interactions."^[29] However, Bundy's friends from Woodrow Wilson High School told Rule that he was "well known and well liked" there, "a medium-sized fish in a large pond."^[30]

His only significant athletic avocation was snow skiing, which he pursued enthusiastically using stolen equipment and forged lift tickets.^[11] During high school he was arrested at least twice on suspicion of burglary and auto theft. When he reached age 18 the details of the incidents were expunged from his record, as is customary in Washington and most other states.^[31]

University years[link]

After graduating from high school in 1965 Bundy spent a year at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) before transferring to the University of Washington (UW) in 1966 to study Chinese.^[32] In 1967 he became romantically involved with a UW classmate who is identified in Bundy biographies by several pseudonyms, most commonly Stephanie Brooks.^[33] In early 1968 he dropped out of college and worked at a series of minimum-wage jobs. He also volunteered at the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign,^[34] and in August, attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami as a Rockefeller delegate.^[35] Shortly thereafter Brooks ended their relationship and returned to her family home in California, frustrated by what she described as Bundy's immaturity and lack of ambition. Psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis would later pinpoint this crisis as "... probably the pivotal time in his development."^[36] Devastated by Brooks' rejection, Bundy traveled to Colorado and then further east, visiting relatives in Arkansas and Philadelphia, and enrolling for one semester at Temple University.^[37] It was at this time in early 1969, Rule believes, that Bundy visited the office of birth records in Burlington and confirmed his true parentage.^[37][38]

Back in Washington in the fall of 1969, he met Elizabeth Kloepfer (identified in Bundy literature as Meg Anders, Beth Archer, or Liz Kendall), a divorcée from Ogden, Utah who worked as a secretary at the University of Washington School of Medicine.^[39] Their stormy relationship would continue well past his initial incarceration in Utah in 1976. In mid-1970, now focused and goal-oriented, he re-enrolled at UW, this time as a psychology major. He became an honor student, well-regarded by his professors.^[40] In 1971 he took a job at Seattle's Suicide Hotline crisis center. There he met and worked alongside Rule, a former Seattle police officer and aspiring crime writer who would later write one of the definitive Bundy biographies, The Stranger Beside Me. Rule saw nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality at the time, describing him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic".^[41]

After graduating from UW in 1972,^[42] Bundy joined Governor Daniel J. Evans' reelection campaign.^[43] Posing as a college student, he shadowed Evans's opponent, former governor Albert Rosellini, recording his stump speeches for analysis by Evans' team.^[44][45] After Evans' reelection he was hired as an assistant to Ross Davis, Chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. Davis thought well of Bundy, describing him as "smart, aggressive ... and a believer in the system."^[46] In early 1973, despite mediocre Law School Admission Test scores, Bundy was accepted into the law schools of UPS and the University of Utah on the strength of letters of recommendation from Evans, Davis, and several UW psychology professors.^[47][48]

During a trip to California on Republican Party business in the summer of 1973, Bundy came back into the life of ex-girlfriend Brooks, who marveled at his transformation into a serious, dedicated professional, seemingly on the cusp of a distinguished legal and political career. He continued to date Kloepfer as well; neither woman was aware of the other's existence. In the fall of 1973 Bundy matriculated at UPS Law School^[49] and continued courting Brooks, who flew to Seattle several times to stay with him. They discussed marriage; at one point he introduced her to Davis as his fiancée.^[23] In January 1974, however, he abruptly broke off all contact; her phone calls and letters went unreturned. Finally reaching him by phone a month later, Brooks demanded to know why Bundy had unilaterally ended their relationship without explanation. In a flat, calm voice, he replied, "Stephanie, I have no idea what you mean ..." and hung up. She never heard from him again.^[50] Later he explained, "I just wanted to prove to myself that I could have married her."^[51] At about the same time Bundy began skipping classes at law school, and by April he had stopped attending entirely,^[52] as young women began to disappear in the Pacific Northwest.^[53]

First series of murders[link]

Washington, Oregon[link]

There is no definitive consensus on when and where Bundy began killing women. Bundy told different stories to different people, and he refused to divulge the specifics of his earliest crimes, even as he confessed in graphic detail to dozens of later murders in the days preceding his execution.^[54] He told attorney Polly Nelson that he attempted his first kidnapping in 1969 in Ocean City, New Jersey, but did not kill anyone until sometime in 1971 in Seattle.^[55] He told psychologist Art Norman that he killed two women in Atlantic City in 1969 while visiting family in Philadelphia.^[56][57] In an interview with King County Detective Robert D. Keppel he mentioned a homicide in 1972^[58] and another in 1973 involving a hitchhiker near Tumwater, Washington, but refused to elaborate.^[59] Rule and Keppel believe he may have started killing as a teenager.^[60][61] Circumstantial evidence suggests that he abducted and killed eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr of Tacoma in 1961 when he was 14 years old, an allegation he denied repeatedly.^[58] Bundy committed his earliest documented homicides in 1974 when he was 27. By then he had (by his own admission) mastered the skills needed—in the era before DNA profiling—to leave minimal incriminating evidence at a crime scene.^[62]

Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1974—around the same time he terminated his relationship with Brooks—Bundy entered the basement bedroom of 18-year-old Joni Lenz (a pseudonym), a dancer and student at UW. He bludgeoned her with a metal rod from her bed frame and then sexually assaulted her with a speculum, causing extensive internal injuries.^[63] She remained unconscious for 10 days but survived the attack with permanent brain damage.^[64][65] A month later, again late at night, Bundy broke into the room of UW student Lynda Ann Healy, who broadcast Seattle's radio weather reports for skiers each morning. He beat her unconscious, dressed her in bluejeans, a white blouse, and boots, and carried her away.^[66]

Female college students continued disappearing at the rate of about one per month. In March, Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, 60 miles (97 km) southwest of Seattle, left her dormitory for a jazz concert on campus but never arrived. In April, Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared while on her way to a movie after an evening advisors' meeting at Central Washington State College (now Central Washington University) in Ellensburg, 110 miles (180 km) southeast of Seattle.^[67][68] Two female Central Washington students later came forward to report encounters—one on the night of Rancourt's disappearance, the other three nights earlier—with a man wearing an arm sling, asking for help carrying a load of books to his brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.^[69][70] On May 6, Roberta Kathleen Parks left her dormitory at Oregon State University in Corvallis, 260 miles (420 km) south of Seattle, to have coffee with friends at the Student Union Building. She never arrived.^[71]

Detectives from the Crimes Against Persons Unit of the Seattle Police Department grew increasingly concerned. There was no significant physical evidence, and the missing women had little in common, apart from being young, attractive, white college students with long hair parted in the middle.^[72] On June 1, Brenda Carol Ball, 22, disappeared after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien, Washington near Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. She was last seen talking in the parking lot to a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling.^[73] In the early hours of June 11, UW student Georgeann Hawkins vanished while walking down the brightly lit alley between her boyfriend's dormitory residence and her sorority house. The next morning three Seattle homicide detectives and a criminalist combed the entire alleyway on their hands and knees, finding nothing.^[74] After Hawkins's disappearance was publicized, witnesses came forward to report seeing a man that night in the alley behind a nearby dormitory, on crutches with a leg cast, struggling to carry a briefcase.^[75] One woman said the man asked her to help him carry the case to his car, a light-brown Volkswagen Beetle.^[76]

During this period Bundy was working at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services (DES) in Olympia—a government agency involved in the search for the missing women. There he met and dated Carole Ann Boone, a twice-divorced mother of two who, six years later, would play an important role in the final phase of his life.^[77]

Ted Bundy's 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, the venue for many of his crimes, on display at the National Museum of Crime & Punishment^[78][79]

Reports of the six missing women and Lenz's brutal beating appeared prominently in newspapers and on television throughout Washington and Oregon.^[80] Fear spread among the population; hitchhiking by young women dropped sharply.^[81] While pressure mounted on law enforcement agencies,^[82] the paucity of physical evidence severely hampered them. Police could not provide reporters with the little information that was available for fear of compromising the investigation.^[83] Further similarities between the victims were noted, however: the disappearances all took place at night, usually near ongoing construction work, within a week of midterm or final exams; all of the victims were wearing slacks or blue jeans; and at most crime scenes there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling and driving a brown Volkswagen Beetle.^[84]

The Pacific Northwest murder string culminated on July 14 with the broad-daylight abductions of two women from a crowded beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, 20 miles (32 km) east of Seattle. Five female witnesses described a handsome young man wearing a white tennis outfit with his left arm in a sling, speaking with a light accent, perhaps Canadian, perhaps British. Introducing himself as "Ted", he asked their help in unloading a sailboat from his tan- or bronze-colored Volkswagen Beetle. Four refused; one accompanied him as far as his car, saw that there was no sailboat, and fled. Three additional witnesses saw him approach Janice Anne Ott, 23, a probation case worker at the King County Juvenile Court, with the sailboat story, and watched her leave the beach in his company.^[85] About four hours later Denise Naslund, an 18-year-old woman who was studying to become a computer programmer, left a picnic to go to the restroom and never returned.^[86] Bundy later told Stephen Michaud that Ott was still alive when he returned with Naslund—and that one was forced to watch as the other was murdered^[87][88]—an assertion that he would retract on the eve of his execution.^[89]

King County detectives, finally armed with a detailed description of their suspect as well his car, posted fliers throughout the Seattle area. A composite sketch was printed in regional newspapers and broadcast on local television stations. Elizabeth Kloepfer, Ann Rule, a DES employee, and a UW psychology professor all recognized the profile, the sketch, and the car, and reported Ted Bundy as a possible suspect;^[90] but the police, who were receiving up to 200 tips per day,^[91] initially thought it unlikely that a clean-cut law student with no adult criminal record could be the perpetrator.^[92]

On September 6 two grouse hunters stumbled across the skeletal remains of Ott and Naslund near a service road in Issaquah, 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Lake Sammamish State Park.^[93] An extra femur and several vertebrae found on the site were later identified by Bundy as belonging to Georgeann Hawkins.^[94] Six months later the skulls and mandibles of Healy, Rancourt, Parks, and Ball were found on Taylor Mountain (where Bundy frequently hiked), just east of Issaquah. All bore extensive damage from a blunt instrument.^[95]

Idaho, Utah, Colorado[link]

In August 1974 Bundy received a second acceptance from the University of Utah Law School and moved to Salt Lake City, leaving Kloepfer in Seattle. While he called Kloepfer often, he dated "at least a dozen" other women.^[96] As he studied the first-year law curriculum a second time, "he was devastated to find out that the other [law] students had something, some intellectual capacity, that he did not. He found the classes completely incomprehensible. 'It was a great disappointment to me,' he said."^[97] Sometime during the year he lived in Utah he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although he was not an active participant in services and ignored most church restrictions.^[98][99] (When asked his religious preference after his arrest, Bundy answered "Methodist", the religion of his childhood.^[100])