GRIM LEGION

Henry Leonard Poe wrote and published more than 20 short stories and poems in Southern literary magazines before his brother, Edgar Allan Poe, had penned a single tale. Older than Edgar by two years, Henry was something of a rake and romantic who ran off to sea, sailed up the Amazon, fought in the Greek civil war and visited Russia, all in the late 1820s. A tubercular alcoholic, his tragic life was cut short at the age of 24 before he had a chance to fully develop his talent. Soon after his death, his brother began to write in earnest, achieving the immortality that forever escaped Henry. Jack Alcott's "Grim Legion" brings Henry back from the dead, exploring the close relationship between the two brothers and Henry's influence on the master of horror and mystery fiction. The novel attempts to rescue Henry Poe from obscurity and restore him to his rightful place in early American literature — as a character and a major influence on his brother, if not a well-known author in his own right.