Edgar Poe was born the son of itinerant actors on January 19th 1809 in Boston Massachusets Abandoned by his father & the later death of his mother he was taken into the foster care of John Allan a Virginia tobacco farmer Now styled as Edgar Allan Poe he distinguished himself at the University of Virginia but was equally adept at collecting debts from his assiduous gambling His stepfather's disapproval shattered their fragile relationship & Poe left home to seek his fortune In 1836 he married his cousin Virginia but despite his prolific activities
- journalism poetry lecturing short stories publishing criticism & experimentation with fictional genres including the detective novel which he virtually invented with the publication of The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
- he received scant recognition for his efforts until the publication of The Raven in 1845 The poem's instant popularity gave him a new visibility in literary circles but his personal situation remained desperate poverty illness drink & the physical decline & ultimate death of Virginia in 1847 led to his untimely & premature decline In 1849 he was found sick injured & semi-conscious in a Baltimore tavern Taken to hospital he lingered on for four days but never recovered & on October 7th Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of 40 He was one of the most original writers in the history of American letters
- a genius who thanks to his dire reputation was tragically misunderstood during his lifetime It was not until Baudelaire enthusiastically translated his work that he found a wider audience in Europe & became not only an enormous influence on modern French literature but also on the acclaimed work of writers such as Dostoevsky Conan Doyle & Jules Verne