title: Portraits of Poe: Edgar Allan Poe Illustrated
author: Edgar Allan Poe
description: Edgar Allan Poe 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. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The Raven", to instant success. 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. Poe and his works influenced literature around the world, Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Cover](images/cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## The Oval Portrait
  
  
    
  
  
  ### Edgar Allan Poe
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  A painter is so obsessed with painting the perfect portrait of his beautiful
  wife, that he does nothing else until it is finished. As an artist myself, I
  can relate to this story in more ways than one. It is very short, only a
  couple of pages, but definitely worth reading.
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## The Oval Portrait
  
  
  ##
  
  
  _by Edgar Allan Poe_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather
  than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the
  open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have
  so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of
  Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately
  abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least
  sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret 