one of his friends, john hamilton mckenzie, apparently fell out of a tree and broke his arm. and then before the arm had a chance to heal, he was jumping on his bed, fell off the bed and broke his arm again, and his mother told him, well, don't go outside. stay home, and just entertain this little kid edgar. so they entertained each other by telling stories. and john hamilton mckenzie recalls telling edgar the standard stories, robertson caruso, but so would embellish stories, adding and adding and creating new stories they had not heard before. eventually poe got an interest in poetry, and by the age of 13 he had already compiled enough of his poetry that he wanted his foster father to help him get it published. and the foster father showed it to the headmaster and said poe is too proud of himself. the last thing you want to do is fuel his ego by publishing a book of his poetry. but by the time he was 18, he published his first book, a lot -- he actually published his first book, tamerlane. a lot of what was published in tamerlane was written while he was in richmond, attend