-
Edgar Poe is born in Boston to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr. His parents are traveling actors. -
Poe’s mother dies and Poe is taken into the care of John and Frances Allan in Richmond, Virginia, while his older brother, William, is sent to the Poe family in Baltimore and his young sister, Rosalie, is taken to the home of William and Jane Scott Mackenzie in Richmond. -
Poe moves to England with John and Frances Allan. Their journey by ship takes about four weeks. John Allan expects to stay in England for several years to develop new buiness for his general merchant and tobacco trading firm, Ellis & Allan. -
Poe is enrolled at the Manor House School in Stoke Newington. Poe’s experience at the school would later inspire his short story William Wilson. -
Poe and the Allans board the sailing ship Martha and begin their journey back to Richmond, Virginia. -
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. -
At 17 years, Poe began taking classes at the University of Virginia. In December, despite his academic excellence, Poe left the University of Virginia due to large gambling debts and other unpaid bills, which John Allen refused to pay. -
Poe’s first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems, is published by Boston publisher Calvin F.S. Thomas. -
Frances Allan dies and Poe arrives one day late for her funeral and Poe public he second book of poetry, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, is published by Baltimore publisher Hatch & Dunning. -
Poe’s third book of poems, Poems, is published in New York. The book is dedicated to “The U.S. Corps of Cadets.” Poe returns to Baltimore to live with his aunt Maria Clemm, his cousin Virginia, and his brother Henry, who dies in August.
-
Poe marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. -
Poe begins to circulate a prospectus for his own journal, The Penn Magazine in Philadelphhia(USA), but becomes extremely ill and is forced to postpone its publication.
-
Virginia Poe becomes ill with tuberculosis. Friends and acquaintances remark that Poe is drinking heavily. He resigns from Graham’s Magazine. In the same month, Griswold’s anthology The Poets and Poetry of America is published. It contains only three of Poe’s poems.
-
Poe published the poem "The Raven" in the New York Evening Mirror. It was a huge success, bringing the writer fame and fortune he had long eluded. He soon became the editor and owner of a magazine called The Daily Broadway, a doomed business that was deeply in debt when Poe took over. -
Daily Broadway collapsed due to serious financial problems.
-
Poe's wife Virginia died of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx. During the final months of his illness, Poe was so depressed that friends thought he was going crazy. The loss of his wife sent Poe into a vicious cycle of alcoholism. -
Poe proposed to a poet named Sarah Helen Whitman, who agreed with him to abstain from drinking. Poe was unable to keep his promise, and Whitman called off the engagement a month later. -
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.