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Edgar Allan Poe is born
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. -
Edgar's sister is born
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Poe's Parent's Die
The conditions of the deaths of Poe's parents is only certain for his mother. She died of tuberculosis. Speculation and conjecture lends what we may not know what killed Poe’s father, as he had left Boston after the death of Poe's mother. He did however die with a few weeks of having left. As a child Edgar would tell people that his parents were both killed in a fire during a stage performance, but such fanciful tales were often the delight of the young Edgar. -
Poe writes his first poem
Poe’s stature as a major figure in world literature is primarily based on his ingenious and profound short stories, poems, and critical theories, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in both poetry and fiction. Regarded in literary histories and handbooks as the architect of the modern short story, -
Poe enlists in the army after his first book is published
Edgar Allan Poe’s return to Richmond after his first semester at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in December 1826 was not the joyous reunion with family and friends that most college freshmen experience. Poe’s friends avoided him. The military was the path taken when more money was needed. -
Poe's oldest brother dies
William Henry Leonard Poe was a sailor, amateur poet and the older brother of Edgar Allan Poe and Rosalie Poe. Henry lived with family in Baltimore, Maryland, while Edgar and Rosalie were cared for by two different families in Richmond, Virginia. Before the age of 20, Henry traveled around the globe by sea before returning to Baltimore and becoming a published poet and author -
Poe maries his cousin
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. In January 1842 she contracted tuberculosis, growing worse for five years until she died of the disease at the age of 24. -
Poe's first novel is written
Poe's first novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, is published.He was the first well-known American to try to live by writing alone and was hampered by the lack of an international copyright law.Pblishers often pirated copies of British works rather than paying for new work by Americans. -
1840 Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes.
The collection was dedicated to Colonel William Drayton, anonymous author of The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionists (Philadelphia: H. Manly, 1836). whom Poe likely met while stationed in Charleston, South Carolina; when Drayton moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Poe continued to correspond with him. Dayton was a former member of Congress turned judge and may have subsidized the book's publication. -
Poe Publishes the poem "the Raven"
The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, -
Jan 30, 1847 Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx
The disease and eventual death of his wife had a substantial effect on Edgar Allan Poe, who became despondent and turned to alcohol to cope. Her struggles with illness and death are believed to have affected his poetry and prose, where dying young women appear as a frequent motif, as in "Annabel Lee", "The Raven", and "Ligeia". -
Oct 7, 1849 Edgar Allen Poe Dies.
The death of Edgar Allan Poe has remained mysterious: the circumstances leading up to it are uncertain and the cause of death is disputed. On October 3, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, "in great distress, and ... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7.