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Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins (1787-1831) and actor David Poe (1784-1810).
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Edgar had a brother named William Henry, who was born in 1807, and a sister named Rosalie, born in 1811. After his parents died, he was taken in by Frances and John Allan, a wealthy merchant in Richmond, Virginia.
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Edgar traveled with the Allans to England in 1815 and attended school in Chelsea. In 1820, he was back in Richmond where he attended the University of Virginia and studied Latin and poetry.
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Edgar like to swim and act in his spare time.
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While in school, Edgar became estranged from his foster father after he accumulated gambling debts. Unable to pay them or support himself, Poe left school and enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served for two years.
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In 1829, his second book, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems was published. Poe's only completed novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, was published in 1838.
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The same year Poems was published, Poe moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt Maria Clemm, mother of Virgina Eliza Clemm (1822-1847) .
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Edgar become editor and contributor of the Southern Literary Messenger.
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Edgar married Virginia Clemm at age thirteen in Richmond in 1836, then moved to New York City.
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Virgina bust a blood vessel in 1842, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years later. After Virginia's death, Poe beagn to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs; he had several romances.
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Poe turned to alcohol more frequently and was purportedly displaying increasingly erratic behavior. A year later he became engaged to his teenage sweetheart from Richmond, Elmira Royster. In 1849 he embarked on a tour of poetry readings and lecturing, hoping to raise funds so he could start his magazine, The Stylus.
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Edgar died on October 7th, 1849. He was buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave in the Old Westminster Burying Ground of Baltimore.
