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Edgar Allan Poe is Born.
Born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and horror initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in national literature. -
Poe's Sister is Born.
Poe's sister Rosalie is born. Shortly after her birth, or possibly even before it, David Poe deserts the family, leaving Poe's mother alone with three children. Making matters worse, Elizabeth Poe soon falls ill with tuberculosis. -
Poe's Parents Die.
Elizabeth Arnold Poe dies of tuberculosis in Richmond, Virginia. Within days, David Poe also dies of tuberculosis. With no parents to take care of them, the three children of the family are split up. A Richmond couple, John and Frances Allan, take in Edgar as a foster child. Edgar adopt their foster families' names as his middle names. -
Poe First Poem.
A fifteen-year-old Edgar Allan Poe pens his first known poem: "Last night, with many cares & toils oppres'd,/ Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest." (This is Poe’s earliest surviving poem. It was never published during his lifetime, nor used as part of a longer poem.) -
Poe First Book is Published.
Poe enlists in the U.S. Army under the name "Edgar A. Perry." Shortly after, his first book—a poetry collection entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems—is published in Boston by Calvin F. S. Thomas. The thin pamphlet sells perhaps 50 copies, many likely distributed free for reviews. The author is listed only as "A Bostonian." -
Poe's Older Brother Dies.
William Henry Leonard Poe, Edgar’s older brother, dies in Baltimore, probably of tuberculosis or cholera. (Discounting the possiblity of cholera, it has been noted that the disease did not arrive in the United States until 1832.) -
Poe Marries His Cousin, Virginia Clemm.
Edgar (aged 27) and Virginia (aged 13) marry in Richmond, Virginia. The ceremony is officiated by the Reverend Amasa Convers, a Presbyterian minister who was also editor of the Southern Religious Telegraph. -
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Poe and his family move to Philadelphia. Poe's first novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, is published in New York by Harper & Brothers. -
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (two volumes) is published in Philadelphia by Lea and Blanchard. -
The Raven.
Poe publishes the poem , The Raven in the New York Evening Mirror. It is wildly successful, bringing the writer the fame and fortune that have long eluded him. He soon becomes editor and owner of a magazine called the Broadway Journal, a doomed enterprise that is already in debt when Poe takes over. -
Poe's wife Virginia Dies.
Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx, in Fordham, New York. Poe has been so despondent during the final months of her illness that friends thought he was going insane. The loss of his wife sends Poe into a downward spiral of alcoholism. She is entombed on February 2 in the Valentine family vault in the Dutch Reformed Church at Fordham. -
Edgar Allen Poe Dies.
After being found unconscious in a Baltimore gutter, Edgar Allan Poe is taken to the Washington University Hospital and pronounced dead of causes still unknown. He is buried at Westminster Presbyterian Church in his grandfather’s lot in the Westminster Burying Ground. The ceremony is officiated by the Reverend William T. D. Clemm.
