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Edgar Allan Poe is born.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19,1809. He was an orphan with a troubled childhood who became America’s first great lyric poet, the inventor of the modern detective story, a pioneer of science fiction, and the master of the macabre. Over the course of just forty years, Poe became the first internationally influential American writer. -
Poe's sister is born
Poe's sister Rosalie is born on December 10, 1810. Shortly after her birth, or possibly even before it, Their father deserts the family, leaving Poe's mother alone with three children to raise alone. 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. 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: . -
Poe enlists in the U.S. Army and shortly after his first book was published.
Poe enlists in the U.S. Army under the name "Edgar A. Perry." He claimed he was 22 years old even though he was 18.
Shortly after, his first book—a poetry collection entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems—is published. The author is listed only as "A Bostonian." Later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, and kicked out from the army. -
Poe's older brother dies.
Edgar's older brother Henry dies of either tuberculosis or cholera at the age of 27. -
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. The marriage proved a happy one, and the family is said to have enjoyed singing together at night. Virginia expressed her devotion to her husband in a Valentine poem now in the collection of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and Poe celebrated the joys of married life in his poem “Eulalie.” -
Poe writes his first novel The Narrative of the Arthur Gordon Pym.
Poe's first novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, is published, and widely reviewed in 1838. -
Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes.
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
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 and depression. -
Edgar Allan 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. Poe died on October 7, 1849 at the age of forty.
