Edgar allan poe portrait b

Edgar Allan Poe

  • Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

    Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
    Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes.
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    edgar allan poe

  • Wife gets sick

    Wife gets sick
    While singing at the piano, Virginia begins to bleed from her mouth, a symptom of untreated tuberculosis. Her illness grows progressively worse.
  • Begins lecturing

    Poe begins delivering lectures on poetry. He is a popular lecturer, frequently speaking to packed audiences.
  • New York Bound

    Poe, his wife, and her mother move to New York City, where he gets a job at the New York Evening Mirror.
  • The Raven

    The Raven
    Poe publishes the poem , The Raven in the New York Evening Mirror. It is wildly successful, bringing the writer the fame and fortune that have long eluded him. He soon becomes editor and owner of a magazine called the Broadway Journal, a doomed enterprise that is already in debt when Poe takes over.
  • Magazine Fails

    The Broadway Journal folds due to serious financial problems.
  • Death of Wife

    Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx. Poe has been so despondent during the final months of her illness that friends thought he was going insane. The loss of his wife sends Poe into a downward spiral of alcoholism.
  • engagement

    Poe proposes to a poet named Sarah Helen Whitman, who agrees on the condition that he quit drinking. Poe can't live up to the promise, and Whitman calls off the engagement a month later.