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Edgar Allan Poe is Born.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best 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. -
Poe’s Sister is born
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. -
Poe’s Parents Die.
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. Henry goes to live with his paternal grandparents. A Richmond couple, John and Frances Allan, take in Edgar as a foster child. Rosalie is taken in by another Richmond family named Mackenzie. Both Edgar and Rosalie adopt their foster families' names as their middle names. -
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 and shortly after his first book is published.
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." -
Poe’s older brother dies.
His elder brother Henry, who had been in ill health in part due to problems with alcoholism, died on August 1, 1831. -
Poe marries his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm.
Poe—now 27 years old—marries his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, at a ceremony in Richmond, Virginia. -
Poe writes his first novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
Dissatisfied with his low pay and lack of editorial control at the Messenger, Poe moved to New York City. In the wake of the financial crisis known as the “Panic of 1837,” Poe struggled to find magazine work and wrote his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. -
Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes.
In spite of his growing fame, Poe was still barely able to make a living. For the publication of his first book of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, he was only paid with twenty-five free copies of his book. He would soon become a champion for the cause of higher wages for writers as well as for an international copyright law. To change the face of the magazine industry, he proposed starting his own journal, but he failed to find the necessary funding. -
Poe publishes the poem, The Raven
The January 1845 publication of “The Raven” made Poe a household name. He was now famous enough to draw large crowds to his lectures, and he was beginning to demand better pay for his work. -
Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx
He then moved to a tiny cottage in the country. It was there, in the winter of 1847 that Virginia died at the age of twenty-four. Poe was devastated, and was unable to write for months. His critics assumed he would soon be dead. -
Edgar Allen Poe Dies
On the way to Philadelphia, Poe stopped in Baltimore and disappeared for five days. He was found in the bar room of a public house that was being used as a polling place for an election. The magazine editor Joseph Snodgrass sent Poe to Washington College Hospital, where Poe spent the last days of his life far from home and surrounded by strangers. Neither Poe’s mother-in-law nor his fiancée knew what had become of him until they read about it in the newspapers.
