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Poe Sister is Born
Rosalie Mackenzie Poe, née Rosalie Poe, was the estranged sister of Edgar Allan Poe. Rosalie, born approximately December 1810 in Norfolk, Virginia, was the last of Elizabeth Arnold Poe’s children. There is debate who her father is, because David Poe, Eliza’s husband, had abandoned the family around the time Rosalie would have been conceived. There is speculation that John Howard Payne, a prominent fellow actor of the time, was Rosalie’s father. -
Poe's Parents Die
His parents were David and Elizabeth Poe. David was born in Baltimore on July 18, 1784. Elizabeth Arnold came to the U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie. Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar was 2 years old. -
First Poem
Poe writes a two-line poem: “— Poetry - Edgar A. Poe — 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.) -
Enter the Army
Poe enlists in the United States Army under the name Edgar A. Perry. Poe’s first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems is published in Boston by Calvin F. S. Thomas. The author is noted only as “A Bostonian.” The thin pamphlet sells perhaps 50 copies, many likely distributed free for reviews. -
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 thirteen year old cousin, Virgina 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. -
First Novel The Narractive of Atthur Gordon Pym
The number of copies printed is uncertain. Poe mentions this book in only one letter: “You once wrote in your magazine a sharp critique upon a book of mine — a very silly book — Pym. Had I written a similar criticism upon a book of yours, you feel that you would have been my enemy for life, and you therefore imagine in my bosom a latent hostility towards yourself” -
Tales of Groteque and Arabesque
Poe abandoned his proposed Tales of the Folio Club, but not the idea of a collected edition of his prose fiction. Dropping the apparatus of a literary club, and the “burlesques upon criticism,” he combined the original tales with additional items which had appeared in the pages of the Southern Literary Messenger. This new collection of 25 stories became Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. -
The Rave
Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven” is published in the New York Evening Mirror, where it becomes a sensational hit. It is widely reprinted and brings Poe considerable praise and fame, although financially he receives only about $15 for the initial printing. (Many stories have been told of the writing of “The Raven.” -
Poe's wife Virgina dies
Virginia Poe dies of tuberculosis in Fordham, New York. She is entombed on February 2 in the Valentine family vault in the Dutch Reformed Church at Fordham. (The bed in which she died may still be seen in this house. The tops of the posts at the foot of the bed are cut off so that it will fit under the sloping roof.) -
edgar Allen Poe Dies
Edgar Allan Poe dies in Baltimore in the Washington University Hospital (later Church Home and Hospital). In 1849 (Oct. 8 or 9) Edgar Allan Poe is buried in his grandfather’s lot in the Westminster Burying Ground. The ceremony is officiated by the Reverend William T. D. Clemm. -
Adgar Allan is Born
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families.
