January 19, 2014 is the 205th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth.  Like so many others, I am impressed with the poetic, dramatic, mysterious works of Mr. Poe, to the extent that he is the inspiration for the Tell-Tale Creations name.

In honor of The Man, I present a sample of his famous poem Annabel Lee hand written by himself.

I am struck by the neatness, uniformity, compactness and utter readability of this handwriting from 1849.  Much handwriting of that time was quite flowery and curlicued.

I imagine that as a writer attempting to earn a living from his writing alone, it was critical for Poe to have such orderly and legible penmanship.  Poe would have submitted handwritten manuscripts to be considered for publication. This essentially flawless penmanship must have been a part of his consistently being published.

View more articles in celebration of EA Poe’s influence on American literature and culture. 

Photo of Poe’s grave marker courtesy of orayzio under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 2.0

Photo of Annabel Lee handwritten copy courtesy of vidalia_11 under Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0