Poe, Edgar Allan

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). A major force in Lovecraft's literary development, he is often alluded or referred to in HPL's work.

Poe was read by Gedney, the miskatonic student on the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition. He was also mentioned by Dr. Whipple's nephew as having staying on occasion in Providence at the Mansion House (later the Golden Ball Inn) while wooing unsuccessfully the gifted poetess, Mrs. (Sarah Helen) Whitman. William Dyer, the narrator of "At the Mountains of Madness" wrote, "Puffs of smoke from (Mt.) Erebus came intermittently, and one of the graduate students - a brilliant young fellow named Danforth - pointed out what looked like lava on the snowy slope, remarking that this mountain, discovered in 1840, had undoubtedly been the source of Poe's image when he wrote seven years later:

- the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currentents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
Danforth was a great reader of bizarre material, and had talked a good deal of Poe. I was interested myself because of the antarctic scene of Poe's only long story - the disturbingly and enigmatical Arthur Gordon Pym." [The quoted lines are from Poe's 'Ulalume' (II. 15-19)]

("At the Mountains of Madness," "The Shunned House," "The Whisperer in Darkness," "Where Poe Once Walked")

See also: Arthur Gordon Pym
See also: de la Poer, Gilbert - where HPL used the earliest version of Poe's surname as a character lineage.

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