Edgar Allan Poe: Master of the Macabre

Fear, paranoia, terror, yearning-such are the themes synonymous with the works of Edgar Allan Poe. But just how did this troubled author known as the "Master of the Macabre" come to create some of the most terrifying and haunting works of all fiction? What happened in his early childhood that significantly altered the young mind of Poe? Where did the author's haunting despair and longing for the dead come from? What led him to excessive drinking and opium smoking as a way of escaping reality?