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Edgar Allan Poe is born.
Poe is an U.S. American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and horror initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. -
Poe’s Sister is born
Rosalie was the estranged sister of Edgar Allan Poe. Rumors persist that Rosalie Poe was not the daughter of David Poe. Rumors suggest she walked the streets, hysterical and shrieking. She made money by selling postcards of her now famous brother and often appended signatures of her name with "Sister of Edgar A. Poe." -
Poe’s Parents Die
Poe never really knew his parents. His father left the family early on, and his mother passed away when he was only three. -
Poe writes his first poem
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." -
Poe enlists in the U.S. Army
He enrolled into the army as Edgar A. Perry." Shortly after, his first book—a poetry collection entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems—is published -
Poe’s older brother dies
Henry was a sailor, amateur poet and the older brother of Edgar Allan Poe and Rosalie Poe. Henry, who was a heavy drinker and may have been an alcoholic, died of tuberculosis. -
Poe marries his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm.
The couple were first cousins and married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. Some biographers have suggested that the couple's relationship was more like that between brother and sister than like husband and wife in that they may have never consummated their marriage -
Poe writes his first novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. -
Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes
Sometime after 1835, having failed to find a publisher, Poe abandoned his proposed Tales of the Folio Club. Dropping the apparatus of a literary club, and the “burlesques upon criticism,” he combined the original tales with additional items which had appeared in the pages of the Southern Literary Messenger. This new collection of 25 stories became Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. By September of 1839, he had finally convinced a publisher to print this two-volume set. -
Poe publishes the poem, 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. -
Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx
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. -
Edgar Allen Poe Dies
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.
