This article: After a textual montage summarizing Edgar Allan Poe's life, the film begins in late September 1849 with Poe awakening from a hallucination where he is buried alive.  He prepares to take a trip to New York City via a ferry steamboat from Richmond, Virginia, to Baltimore, and from there, another ferry to New York City itself.  He discusses his plans to marry his childhood sweetheart Sarah Elmira Royster with a stranger taking the same steamboat, who suggests that he meet with a few potential investors for his planned magazine The Stylus.  Though Poe had intended only to pass through Baltimore, he agrees to meet the investors who, one by one, turn down his request for funding.  Poe is depicted as having some type of memory loss, which is first evident when he offers to pay his boat fare twice after forgetting he had already paid. In Baltimore, he more than once forgets the arrangements he has made at his hotel as his stay in the city is extended.  One night, he chooses to dine in a local tavern rather than at the hotel.  There, he meets an old friend from his days at West Point.  In desperation, he asks his former classmate and the classmate's companion for money to help start a magazine, saying proudly he has already raised $1,000.  Poe leaves the tavern to retrieve his prospectus for the magazine.  His classmate follows him and beats him up to steal the $1,000 he had collected. An injured and delirious Poe is then found by organizers of a cooping ring.  The author, along with several others, are forced to multiple polling locations around Baltimore to place multiple votes for the candidate for mayor.  A couple of victims of the scam die amidst the brutality of their captors. contains an answer for the question: What is the last name of the person who discusses his plans to marry his childhood sweetheart?, what is it ?
Poe