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Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. Poe’s father and mother, both professional actors, died before the poet was three years old, and John and Frances Allan raised him as a foster child in Richmond, Virginia. -
In 1827, Poe moved to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army. -
In 1827, he published his first collection of poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems (George Redway). -
In 1829, he published a second collection entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (Hatch & Dunning). Neither volume received significant critical or public attention. Following his Army service, Poe was admitted to the United States Military Academy, but he was again forced to leave for lack of financial support. He then moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter, Virginia, in Baltimore. -
He left the army as a cadet.
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Poe began to sell short stories to magazines at around this time, and, in 1835, he became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where he moved with his aunt and cousin Virginia.
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In 1836, he married Virginia, who was thirteen years old at the time. -
Over the next ten years, he established himself as a poet, a short story writer, and an editor. He published some of his best known stories and poems, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and “The Raven.”
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Virginia died from tuberculosis in 1847. -
He returned briefly to Richmond in 1849 and then set out for an editing job in Philadelphia. -
On October 3, 1849, he was found in a state of semi consciousness. Poe died four days later of “acute congestion of the brain.” Evidence by medical practitioners who reopened the case has shown that Poe may have been suffering from rabies.