Lindsey Graham

He told one friend, I am full of dark forebodings.

Nothing cheers or comforts me.

My life seems wasted.

The future looks a dreary blank.

On June 29, 1849, he left New York to travel south to Richmond, where he planned to deliver a lecture and raise money for his magazine.

The next day, he stopped in Philadelphia to drink.

He became so intoxicated that he lost his suitcase and was thrown in jail for public drunkenness.

While imprisoned, he suffered from terrifying hallucinations that seemed to come out of his own stories.

In one vision, he narrowly escaped being boiled alive.

In another, he watched his Aunt Maria Clem be dismembered.

He was released after being recognized as the famous Edgar Allan Poe and spent the next two weeks recovering in the home of a friend.

Poe eventually made it to Richmond, where he delivered his lecture to wide acclaim.

He remained in his hometown for the next two months, which gave him the time to rekindle his romance with his childhood sweetheart, Elmira Royster, now a wealthy widow.

He wasted little time in proposing to her.

But her children strongly opposed the match, and she stalled on giving him an answer.

Poe even joined a temperance society to try and persuade her to marry him.

On September 27th, he set off for New York, where he planned to settle his affairs before bringing his Aunt Maria Clem back to Richmond with him.

The next day, he stopped in Baltimore to drink.

No one knows how he spent the next five days.

On October 3rd, a young printer discovered him outside a tavern, drunk and delirious.