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Edgar Allan Poe is Born
Edgar Poe is born in Boston to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., both traveling actors. The couple already has one son named Henry -
Edgar Allan 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. -
Poe Writes his First Poem
Poe writes a two-line poem: “Last night, with many cares & toils oppres‘d, Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest.” (This is Poe’s earliest surviving poem. It was never published during his lifetime, nor used as part of a longer poem.) -
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
Henry, who was a heavy drinker and may have been an alcoholic, died of tuberculosis on August 1, 1831, in Baltimore, likely in the same room or even the same bed which he shared with his brother Edgar. He was twenty-four. Henry was buried at what is now Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, where his brother would be buried several years later. Henry's obituary misspelled his name as "W. H. Hope" -
Poe Marries Virginia Clemm
The wife of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The couple were first cousins and married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. Biographers disagree as to the nature of the couple's relationship. Though their marriage was loving, some biographers suggest they viewed one another more like a brother and sister -
Poe writes his first novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
The only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism, before he is saved by the crew of the Jane Guy -
Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is a collection of previously published short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1840. Poe may have been using these terms as subdivisions of Gothic art or Gothic architecture in an attempt to establish similar subdivisions in Gothic fiction -
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 Dies
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. -
Edar 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
