Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother and father, Elizabeth Poe and David Poe Jr. were both actors. He had two siblings an older brother named William H. L. Poe and a younger sister named Rosalie Poe. His father left them when he was only one year old. His mother later died of Tuberculosis a year later. So Poe was inherited by John Allan; a Scottish tobacco merchant. Edgar has now moved to Richmond, Virginia. His brother and sister were sent off to live with other famalies. Poe took the name Allan from his adoptive family and was now known as Edgar Allan Poe. In 1815 he traveled to England to start in Grammer School in Irvine, Scotland. Then to a boarding school in Chelsea in 1817. After boarding school he went to Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington near London. In 1826 he joined the University of Virginia but quit within a year. The reason why was because John Allan could ot give him enough money to survive. Edgar started to gamble, lost and was in debt. The relationship with him and John became sour and bitter because of his gambling problem.
After Poe traveled to Boston to enlist in the United States Army under the name Edgar A. Perry. He recieved the rank of Sergeant Major while serving for two years. Edgar moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1829 to live with his aunt, cousin, and his brother Henry. In that same year his foster mother who had taken him in died. Poe then had joined the United States Military Academy at West Point. During that same year he had published another volume of poems titled, ‘Al Aaraaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems’. After Poe joined West Point John Allan decided to kick him out because of the differences they still had. Poe went on strike and was court-martialed for disobedience in 1931. After that he released another volume of poems called, Poems, Second Edition. So Edgar moved back to Baltimore with his aunt. On August 1931 his brother Henry died of tuberculosis. He began to publish his short stories in Philidelphia and won a prize for the short story called ‘The Manuscript found in a Bottle’. This got him a job as the assistant editor on the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. But, he was fired within a few weeks for being drunk. Then he returned to Baltimore again only to marry his own cousin Virginia when she was only 13 at that time. In 1838 Poe published ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’ and it was widely reviewed. In 1839 he joined the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine as an assistant editor. Where he wrote a large number of stories. He also published ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ in two volumes which had a collection of his classic short stories such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Manuscript found in a Bottle’, ‘Bernice’, and ‘Ligeia’.
In 1840 he left the Magazine company he was working for and joined Graham’s Magazine as an assistant editor. Thats where he published his first detective story titled ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ where he created the character of C. Auguste Dupin who solves crimes using deduction. This character influenced Arthur Conan Doyle who created the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Edgar Allan was interested and involved in Cryptography. In 1842 his wife Virginia bled from the mouth only to be diagnosed with tuberculosis later on. Poe began to drink heavily. Poe left his job and went to New York to work for the Broadway Journal where he wrote his famous poem called ‘The Raven’. He left the Broadway Journal after it went bankrupt and moved to The Bronx in New York.
In 1847 his wife Virginia died of tuberculosis which left Poe a depressed man. It is now him against the world. He began to drink heavier and smoked opium. On October 3rd, 1849 Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore unconscious from the alcohol consumed. He was taken to Washington College Hospital. He had finally let go and died on October 7th, 1849 he was 40 years old. Altough he lived a half life full of twists and turns, he left behind great poems and short stories. His life can be described with this poem of his,
Take this kiss upon the brow
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow –
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand –
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
