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Despite the fact that 'To My Mother' has never been one of Edgar Allan Poe's more acclaimed works, it does offer a bit of insight into who he was as a human being.

Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, the biological mother of Edgar Allan Poe, died at the age of twenty four of unspecified causes (though most historians believe she died of tuburculosis) when Edgar was only two. Edgar could not possibly remember his mother, and her early death is believed to be one of the things that most haunted him throughout his life causing him to search for a mother's love from various sources and to write about women who perish at an early age in many of his works.

Most literary analysts believe that Poe is referring to Maria Clemm in 'To My Mother'. Maria, whom Poe referred to as 'Muddy' was both his aunt and his mother-in-law. Poe married Clemm's only child, Virginia who was 13 at the time. He was 27.

In the poem 'To My Mother', Poe is essentially saying that Muddy is dearer to him than his own mother because she is the mother of the person he loved most in the world - his wife Virginia.

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