title: A Dream Within a Dream: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe
author:  Nigel Barnes 
description: 160 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most polarizing and mysterious figures in American literature. Hailed as a genius and condemned as a mentally unstable alcoholic, often in the same breath, the genre pioneer has received a considerable amount of less-than-kind attention from biographers. Barnes takes a far more sympathetic approach in this meticulously researched account. Drawing on public records, previous biographies, an exhaustive list of rare periodicals and an impressive catalog of correspondence between Poe and numerous relatives and associates, Barnes reconstructs Poe from his dire beginnings, born to two struggling actors, to his tragic end, dying alone at age 40. Barnes's scholarly style is ponderous and slow at times, but he offers one of the most complete and fair portraits of Poe yet written. He spends much time defending and excusing Poe's more outr behavior-binging, marrying his 15-year-old cousin, locking himself away for days at a time-but also reframing it, by jettisoning the hyperbolic Poe caricature popular in the public imagination: drunk, insane, perverted, and overrated. This gentle, affectionate portrait of a wildly influential American writer is a must-read for fans of Poe and the kind of genre fiction (mystery, horror, thriller, science fiction) he pioneered. 12 pages of b&amp;w photos. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  ![](images/cover1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _‘We are all in a post-hypnotic trance induced in early infancy’_
  
  
  – R. D. Laing
  
  
  _‘Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?’_
  
  
  – Edgar Allan Poe
  
  
  _‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.’_
  
  
  – Mark Twain
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](images/titpg.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [EGMONT](9781405253048_05_toc.html#copr)
  
  
  _We bring stories to life_
  
  
  _0.4_ first published in Great Britain 2011
  
  
  by Egmont UK Limited
  
  
  239 Kensington High Street
  
  
  London W8 6SA
  
  
  Text copyright © Mike Lancaster 2011
  
  
  First e-book edition copyright © Mike Lancaster 2011
  
  
  The moral rights of the author have been asserted
  
  
  First e-book edition 2011
  
  
  ISBN 978 17803 1000 8
  
  
  [www.egmont.co.uk](http://www.egmont.co.uk)
  
  
  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
  
  
  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
  distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a
  database or retr