Poe’s Middle Name

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.” On a more personal level, the valentine written to Poe by his wife, Virginia, dated as Feb. 14, 1846, less than a year before her death in 1847, spells out “Edgar Allan Poe” as an acrostic, using the first letter of each line. Surely Virginia would have been careful to avoid such a reference to a name that would have caused him even a modicum of discomfort or pain, especially in a carefully prepared valentine.

A quick survey of his extant letters shows an overwhelming preference for “Edgar A. Poe,” followed closely by “E. A. Poe.” Only ten letters are signed “Edgar Allan Poe,” spread widely over his life. A few carry only his last name “Poe.” Personal notes, including a number written to his mother-in-law Maria Clemm, are usually signed “Edgar” (thirteen examples) or “Eddy,” (eight examples), 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). It is not clear whether Griswold did this with Poe’s blessing or under his own authority as editor, but since that time common use has enshrined his full middle name in its current place of prominence. (Poe, of course, was dead before Griswold was officially engaged to see the books through the press, and although Mrs. Clemm stated that it was Poe’s wish that Griswold would server as his editor, there are no first-hand documents to validate Poe’s actual intentions.) This middle name 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.