Edgar Allan Poe Works & Literature

About Edgar Allan Poe

American poet, short story writer, critic and editor Edgar Allan Poe has acquired the reputation of being one of the darkest figures in literary history. After his father left and his mother died of Tuberculosis, Poe lived with a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Running from gambling debts he acquired while in Europe at school, Poe joined the United States Army as a private on May 26, 1827. Poe was discharged with the rank of sergeant major. When his foster parents died, Poe went to live with his widowed aunt, and married his first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, on May 16, 1836. In 1842, Virginia’s tuberculosis drove Poe to drinking heavily. He worked at the Evening Mirror and published “The Raven” in January of 1845 before becoming editor of the Broadway Journal. The Fordham University was one of Poe's favorite places to roam and the University's bell tower inspired him to write “The Bells” in 1912. When Virginia died in 1847, Poe’s heavy drinking and unstable behavior led to his failed engagement to the poet Sarah Helen Whitman. Found rambling and distressed on the streets of Baltimore on October 3, 1849, Poe was taken to the Washington College Hospital where he died on October 7. It is interesting to note that perhaps because of his interest in the macabre, Poe’s reputation was more relevant abroad than in the United States. However, his fame lies in the fact that Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a prognostic of detective and crime fiction.

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