Lindsey Graham

At age 15, he became despondent over the death of a friend's mother.

He suffered from terrible nightmares, and increasingly he clashed with his hard-nosed foster father who complained that Edgar was miserable, sulky, and ill-tempered.

He wrote, He would later write, The want of parental affection has been the heaviest of my trials.

In 1825, at the age of 16, Edgar became secretly engaged to his neighbor Elmira Royster.

That same year, his foster father, Alan, inherited a vast fortune.

The Alans had no other children, so Edgar assumed the money would one day pass to him.

Then at age 17, in February 1826, he entered the University of Virginia.

Edgar was slender, with jet-black hair and dark, expressive eyes.

Classmate noted that he wore a sad, melancholy face always.

He was prone to intense mood swings and began drinking excessively.

Despite his volatile behavior, though, Poe was a talented student, and he excelled at ancient and modern languages.

But he arrived at university with just a fraction of the total cost of his tuition.

John Allen refused to give him more money, despite his large fortune.

Poe turned to gambling to fund his studies, but he racked up large debts that Allen refused to pay off.

During his university years, he continued writing to his fiancée Elmira Royster, but Royster's father disapproved of the relationship.

After two months, he started intercepting Poe's letters.

Thinking Poe had abandoned her, Elmira became engaged to a successful businessman instead.

Edgar was heartbroken over the loss of Elmira, believing she had spurned him.

Adding to his troubles was his financial strain.

Although Poe was doing well academically, his lack of funds forced him to leave university after just a few months.