Edgar Allan Poe

About me:

I was born Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were itinerant actors. My father David Poe Jr. died probably in 1810 and my mother Elizabeth Hopkins Poe in 1811. I was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan and brought up partly in England (1815-20), where I attended Manor School at Stoke Newington. Never legally adopted, I took Allan's name for my middle name. I attended the University of Virginia (1826), but was expelled for not paying my gambling debts. This led to a quarrel with Allan, who later disowned me. In 1827 I joined the U.S. Army as a common soldier under assumed name and age. In 1830 I entered West Point and was dishonorably discharged next year, for intentional neglect of my duties. In 1833 I lived in Baltimore with my father's sister. After winning a prize of $50 for the short story "MS Found in a Bottle," I started a career as a staff member of various magazines, among others the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond (1835-37), Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia (1839-40), and Graham's Magazine (1842-43). During these years I wrote some of my best-known stories.....

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In 1836 I married my 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. She burst a blood vessel in 1842, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years later. After the death of my wife, I began to lose my struggle with drinking and drugs. I addressed the famous poem "Annabel Lee" (1849) to her. My first collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, appeared in 1840. It contained one of my most famous works, "The Fall of the House of Usher." During the early 1840s my best-selling work was The Conchologist's First Book (1839). The dark poem of lost love, "The Raven," brought me national fame, when it appeared in 1845. The Murders in the Rue Morgue(1841) and The Purloined Letter are among my most famous detective stories. I was also one of the most prolific literary journalists in American history. I suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year I disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on my way to visit my new fiancée in Richmond. I turned up in a delirious condition in Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.