Poe’s military records from West Point
give his height as 5 foot, 8 inches. (A photographic reproduction is reprinted in Michael Deas,
Portraits of Poe, p. 4. The same document is excerpted in
The Poe Log, p. 80.) Poe himself repeated this height in a letter to Joseph M. Field, June 15, 1846, “I am 33 years of age — height 5 ft. 8” (Ostrom,
Letters, p. 319)
. Dr. John J. Moran’s description inexplicably added 2 inches to this height, making Poe 5 foot, 10 inches. Moran gave Poe’s weight as 140 pounds.
E. L. Didier gives this somehat dissenting description of Poe, presumably based on first-hand testimony from Maria Clemm, Neilson Poe, N. C. Brooks and others:
“Edgar Poe was five feet six inches high . . . his shoulders were broad, his chest full, his waist small, his limbs symmetrical, his feet and hands as beautiful and shapely as a girl’s. He had the firm step, erect form, and military bearing observable in all West-Pointers” (Didier,
p. 125).