-
Edgar Allan Poe is Born.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Edgar was an American writer, poet, critic and editor best known for evocative short stories and poems that captured the imagination and interest of readers around the world. -
Poe's Sister is born.
Rosalie seems to have had a distant, if not antagonistic relationship with her famous older brother. She herself claimed that she was "a good size girl" before she even knew she had a sibling and incredible statement considering they were raised in the same city. Edgar's one-time fiancee, Sarah Helen Whitman, stated that he told her his relationship with Rosalie was characterized by coldness and estrangement. -
Poe's parents Die.
Poe never really knew his parents — Elizabeth Arnold Poe, a British actress, and David Poe, Jr., an actor who was born in Baltimore. His father left the family early in Poe's life, and his mother passed away from tuberculosis when he was only three. -
Poe writes his 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." -
Poe enlist in the U.S. Army and shortly after his first book is published
Edgar Allan Poe joined the army as a way to support himself due to an estranged relationship with the foster father who had financially supported him. He enlisted under the name Edgar A. Perry and was probably not legally old enough to enlist. -
Poe's older brother dies
William Henry Leonard Poe, often referred to as Henry Poe, was a sailor, amateur poet and the older brother of Edgar Allan Poe and Rosalie Poe. And he died of tuberculosis. -
Poe marries his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm.
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe was the wife of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The couple were first cousins and publicly married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27.Virginia Clemm and Edgar Allan Poe lived together off and on for several years before their marriage. The couple often moved to accommodate Poe's employment, living intermittently in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. -
Poe writes his first novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism, before he is saved by the crew of the Jane Guy. Aboard this vessel, Pym and a sailor named Dirk Peters continue their adventures farther south. -
Poe's story collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque is published in two volumes.
The publisher was willing to print the collection based on the recent success of Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher". Even so, Lea & Blanchard would not pay Poe any royalties; his only payment was 20 free copies. -
Poe publishes the poem, The Raven.
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. -
Poe's wife Virginia dies of tuberculosis at their home in the Bronx
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. -
Edgar Allan Poe Dies
After being found unconscious in a Baltimore gutter, Edgar Allan Poe is taken to the hospital and pronounced dead of causes still unknown. He is buried at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore.
