Edgar Allan Poe WI

What would EAP not having such terrible luck in life cause? How would the face of Modern Literature look?

Or perhaps he stayed at West Point and become a military officer?
 
H.P. Lovecraft was inspired to do horror by Poe, and invented the modern detective story. That, alongside his effect on horror writing, would have repercussions were he not to do what he did.

He also solved Olber's paradox, by the way.
 
If Poe stayed in West Point, let's say he ends up in the lower middle of his class - probably enters the infantry.

He probably would find peacetime military service boring like many of his peers, and may well resign at some point.

If so, he might be an officer of volunteers in the Mexican-American war, which hypothetically could lead to fame.

From there, well, how long does he live? Its potentially possible for him to be a general in the ACW, but how well or for which side?
 
Don't forget that Edgar Allan Poe was himself mostly inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann, so other authors might instead take their inspiration from Hoffmann's works too.
 
If Poe stayed in West Point, let's say he ends up in the lower middle of his class - probably enters the infantry.

He probably would find peacetime military service boring like many of his peers, and may well resign at some point.

If so, he might be an officer of volunteers in the Mexican-American war, which hypothetically could lead to fame.

From there, well, how long does he live? Its potentially possible for him to be a general in the ACW, but how well or for which side?

Must this butterfly him being a prolific author though? Surely some if not all his stories would be different, but just how different or the survival of (Colonel?) Poe as an author of fiction I'm not totally sure we can dismiss with certainty...
 
Must this butterfly him being a prolific author though? Surely some if not all his stories would be different, but just how different or the survival of (Colonel?) Poe as an author of fiction I'm not totally sure we can dismiss with certainty...

Unless he turned to writing OTL for specific reasons that got butterflied away or otherwise eliminated (I don't know), I think he'd still write - possibly very different stories, but he would do so nonetheless. The lack of intellectual stimulation in the peacetime army would make him try something to fill up his time, and writing seems like a natural escape.

My somewhat wild assed guess is something more like Ambrose Bierce - taking "twisted" in a different light thanks to different experiences.

But still with a keen sense of the unsettling and weird.

I tried in that post to avoid speculating on his writing career if he's successful at West Point since a lot depends on where his life leads from there. His life has changed pretty dramatically even if everything up to his first year at West Point goes more or less as OTL.
 
I wonder if you don't get very twisted war stories, with ghost brigades & zombie soldiers & haunted posts & such. (Jeb Stuart aided by the ghost of Lighthorse Harry Lee?:p)
 
Unless, becoming an officer and serving in the AM War he writes gritty war stories about the blood and guts of the battlefield.
 
Malta Shah said:
Unless, becoming an officer and serving in the AM War he writes gritty war stories about the blood and guts of the battlefield.

Very possible. Also very possible it adds a horrific aspect: ghosts fighting on after the battle ends, or something.

And, FYI, there was a story in Asimov's lo these many years ago on this very subject: General Poe, at Gettysburg IIRC. (Don't recall anything else.:eek:)
 
Very possible. Also very possible it adds a horrific aspect: ghosts fighting on after the battle ends, or something.

And, FYI, there was a story in Asimov's lo these many years ago on this very subject: General Poe, at Gettysburg IIRC. (Don't recall anything else.:eek:)

This maybe? http://bookre.org/reader?file=297820 No Spot of Ground by Walter Jon Williams. Or another story?

Its mostly about him in the Overland campaign, although him being at Gettysburg (with what OTL was Kemper's brigade) is mentioned.

And dear God that Poe is an unsympathetic figure. Can't say if it's implausible or not given what changes happened (nothing much in the greater scheme of things - obviously random chaos theory is not the author's thing, though I can't exactly say I disagree).

It got mentioned here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=115678
 
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