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Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, part of the American Romantic Movement. He is known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone.
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Poe's sister Rosalie is born. Shortly after her birth, or possibly even before it, David Poe deserts the family, leaving Poe's mother alone with three children. Making matters worse, Elizabeth Poe soon falls ill with tuberculosis.
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Elizabeth Arnold Poe dies of tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia. Within days, David Poe also dies of tuberculosis. With no parents to take care of them, the three children of the family are split up.
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A fifteen-year-old Edgar Allan Poe pens his first known poem: "Last night, with many cares & toils oppres'd,/ Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest."
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Poe enlists in the U.S. Army under the name "Edgar A. Perry." Shortly after, his first book, a poetry collection entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems, is published. The author is listed only as "A Bostonian."
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Edgar's older brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, dies of either tuberculosis or cholera at the age of 27.
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Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe was the wife of Poe. The couple were first cousins and married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27.
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by Edgar. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism.
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Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is a collection of previously published short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1840. It is published in two volumes.
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"The Raven" is a narrative poem by Poe. The poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The poem makes use of a number of folk and classical references.
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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.
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After being found unconscious in a Baltimore gutter, Edgar Allan Poe is taken to the hospital and pronounced dead of causes still unknown. He is buried at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore.
