Basic, sure, and a bit melodramatic, but a fairly good short biography of Poe. ( )

I found this to be a totally sufficient biography for any casual reader. It begins with Poe's death and then goes back through his orphaning, his tumultuous relationship with his "adopted" father, his tendency to move around frequently, and, as expected, his turn to drink throughout his life. Ackroyd is very good at separating out facts from heresay and exaggeration. He doesn't put Poe on a pedestal either, even broaching the subject of Poe's views on slavery, which I haven't really seen covered before in other brief biographies. All in all, this is a great little volume to have around if you are interested in the life and tragic death of Edgar Allan Poe.

http://webereading.com/2016/10/ripxi-8-poe-life-cut-short.html ( )

Perhaps because I already knew a good deal about Poe's life, I found Ackroyd's sympathetic portrait a little too adroit and somewhat unsatisfying. ( )

skimmed the beginning found the style too encyclopedic ( )

Had a slow start on this one.Not sure if it's the writing or the fact that I couldn't stop thinking of the language not being up to par with subject's greatness, but something didn't quite jive here...Overall, book is well written (verbose at times), but it was almost too short for me... Sort of like too quick a documentary that makes you yearn for more information to digest. ( )