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Although there is no birth
certificate, Poe is presumed to have been
born
as simply Edgar Poe. We can, at least, be certain that "Allan" was not
originally part of his name. Neither his father, grandfather nor
great-grandfather
had middle names, suggesting the form of first and last names only was
a sort of family tradition. A curious exception to this apparent
pattern
was Poe's older brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, with not one but
two
middle names. Edgar's middle name of "Allan" was added by John and
Frances
Allan, who took Poe in as an orphan and served as his foster parents.
Although
Poe was never legally adopted, he became "Edgar Allan Poe" at his
christening
on January 7, 1812. As a child, ironically, he was generally known at
school
as "Edgar Allan" or "Master Allan."
It has sometimes been stated that Poe dropped the use of his full
middle
name following his estrangement from John Allan, about 1827. At best,
no
matter how appealing and romantic, this notion may be dismissed as
unsubstantiated
nonsense. Throughout his life, Poe most typically signed his name
"Edgar
A. Poe," with the initial rather than the full name. His name appears
this
way beginning with the very earliest surviving manuscript, a few lines
written about 1824 as "Poetry -- by Edgar A. Poe." He continued,
however,
to use "Edgar Allan Poe" as a signature in some letters as late as
1849.
Indeed, his handwritten title page for the proposed edition of
"Phantasy
Pieces" clearly gives his name as "Edgar Allan Poe."
A quick survey of his extant letters shows an overwhelming
preference
for "Edgar A. Poe," followed closely by "E. A. Poe." Only eight letters
are signed "Edgar Allan Poe," spread widely over his life. A few carry
only his last name "Poe." Personal notes, primarily to his
mother-in-law
Maria Clemm, are usually signed "Eddy," although one has the form
"Eddie."
A serious evaluation of signatures is complicated, of course, by the
fact
that we have no idea what percentage of Poe's letters may be lost and
how
those letters may have been signed. In addition, the signatures from a
number of surviving letters have been clipped, presumably by autograph
collectors. (Maria Clemm, Poe's mother-in-law, made some money during
her
final years by selling Poe's signature from whatever letters remained
in
her possession.) Poe's marriage bond uses the "Edgar A. Poe" form. A
number
of receipts also carry the "Edgar A. Poe" signature.
After Poe's death, two volumes of his collected writings were
published
as The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (edited by R. W.
Griswold,
1850). Since that time, common use has enshrined his full middle name
in
its current place of prominence. It has, however, suffered the odd fate
of repeatedly being misspelled as "Allen." So frequently does this
error
occur that it seems to be a sort of typographical curse. It has
mistakenly
appeared as "Edgar Allen Poe" in popular and scholarly articles, in
book
titles and in full color on flamboyant movie posters. Even a handsome
commemorative
centennial engraving of Poe, prepared with special care in 1909, was
marred
by this misspelling. Typically, the "Allen" error tends to appear in
such
secondary text as page headings, footnotes, picture captions and
bibliographies.
About 1983, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun actually had the
audacity
to blame Poe for the problem, absurdly accusing Edgar of not having
known
how to spell his own name. Somewhere, perhaps, Poe is laughing at such
foolishness. He always did love a good joke.
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