Reading bios of Lovecraft and Poe.
Guys were profoundly fucked up. I learned that Lovecraft's mom grew his hair out long as a toddler and "feminized" him to the point that he occasionally called himself a little girl. To say nothing of his Anglophilia and racism. And Poe was a helpless mooch who wrote his foster father constantly for extra money - always insisting he didn't need it. He also wrote anonymous appraisals of his own work for literary publications. To say nothing of his alcoholism and adoration for his pubescent cousin.
Both were different in many ways, but they both were raised in foster families, were sickly, died young, saw little success in their lifetimes, and carried an odd mix of overt pride and deep shame. On that last bit, they're probably like many people.