literary small fry were mercilessly condemned and ridiculed. This
naturally made Poe a host of enemies. One of these, Thomas Dunn
English, published an abusive article attacking the author's
character, whereupon Poe sued him for libel and obtained two hundred
and twenty-five dollars damages.

The family now moved to a little three-room cottage at Fordham, a
quiet country place with flowers and trees and pleasant vistas; but
illness and poverty were soon there, too. In 1841 Virginia had burst
a blood vessel while singing, and her life was despaired of; this had
happened again and again, leaving her weaker each time. As the summer
and fall of this year wore away, she grew worse and needed the
tenderest care and attention. But winter drew on, and with it came
cold and hunger; the sick girl lay in an unheated room on a straw bed,
wrapped in her husband's coat, the husband and mother trying to chafe
a little warmth into her hands and feet. Some kind-hearted women
relieved the distress in a measure, but on January 30, 1847, Virginia
died. The effect on Poe was terrible. It is easy to see how a very
artist of death, who could study the dreadful stages of its slow
approach and seek to penetrate the mystery of its ultimate nature with
such intense interest and deep reflection as did Poe, must have
brooded and suffered during the years of his wife's illness. His own
health had long been poor; his brain was diseased and insanity seemed
imminent. After intense grief came a period of settled gloom and
haunting fear. The less than three years of life left for him was a
period of decline in every respect. But he remained in the little
cottage, finding some comfort in caring for his flowers and pets, and
taking long solitary rambles. During this time he thought out and
wrote "Eureka," a treatise on the structure, laws, and destiny of the
universe, which he desired to have regarded as a poem.