After the death of his brother, Henry, in 1831, Edgar decided to try making a living as an author. He was the first well-known American to make such an attempt, but because of the lack of an international copyright law and the economic effects of the Panic of 1837, he was often forced to ask for the monies owed him and compelled to seek other assistance. After winning a literary prize for his story “Manuscript Found in a Bottle,” he was hired as the assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, but he was fired several weeks later for repeated drunkenness. This pattern of dissipation would haunt Poe for the rest of his life.After marrying his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1835, Poe returned to the Messenger, where he worked for the next two years, seeing its circulation rise to 3,500 copies, from 700. His only fulllength novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, was published in 1838 to wide review and acclaim, although once again Poe received little profit from his work. The year after saw the publication of his first short story collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, which received mixed reviews and sold poorly. He left the Messenger and worked at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine before announcing that he would start his own literary publication, The Penn, later to be titled The Stylus. Tragically, it never came to print.Virginia first showed signs of tuberculosis in 1842, and her gradual decline over the next five years caused Edgar to drink even more heavily. The one bright spot in this time was the publication in 1845 of one of his most famous works, “The Raven,” which brought him widespread acclaim; unfortunately, he was paid only nine dollars for the poem itself.Shor
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