Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born on 19 January 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of actors Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins (1787-1811) and David Poe (1784-1810).   He had a brother named William Henry (1807-1831) and Sister Rosalie (1811-1874).   After the death of his parents Frances (d.1829) and John Allan (d.1834), a wealthy merchant in Richmond, Virginia, took in Edgar.
Young Edgar traveled with the Allan’s to England in 1815 and attended school in Chelsea.   In 1820, he was back in Richmond where he attended the University of Virginia and studied Latin and poetry and loved to swim and act.   While in school, he became estranged from his foster father after accumulating gambling debts.   Unable to pay them or support himself, Poe left school and enlisted in the United States Army where he served for two years.   He had been writing poetry for some time and in 1827 “Dreams”—Oh!   That my young life was a lasting dream!   first appeared in the Baltimore North American, the same year his first book Tamerlane and Other Poems was published, at his own expense.
When Poe’s foster mother died in 1829 her deathbed wish was honored by Edgar and stepfather John reconciling, though it was brief.   Poe enlisted in the West Point Military Academy but was dismissed a year later.   In 1829 his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems was published.   The same year Poems (1831) was published Poe moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt Maria Clemm, mother of Virginia Eliza Clemm (1822-1847) who would become his wife at the age of thirteen.   His brother Henry was also living in the Clemm household but he died of tuberculosis soon after Edgar moved in.   In 1833, the Baltimore Saturday Visiter published some of his poems and he won a contest in it for his story “MS found in a Bottle.”   In 1835, he became editor and contributor of the Southern Literary Messenger.   However, not without his detractors and troubles with employers, it was the start of his career as respected critic and essayist....