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Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, MA on January 19, 1809. He was born to his mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, and his father, David Poe, Jr. He already had an older brother named Henry.
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Edgar's sister, Rosalie, is born December 10, 1810. Around this time, Edgar's father, David, decided to leave the family and never return. Some time later, Edgar's mother, Elizabeth contracts tuberculosis, an airborne infection that attacks a person's lungs.
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Edgar's mother died of tuberculosis in Richmond, VA. Not long after her death, Edgar's father also died of tuberculosis. The three Poe children are left orphaned after the parents' deaths. Henry, Edgar's older brother, was taken in by their paternal grandparents; Edgar was taken in by a Richmond couple named John and Frances Allan; Rosalie was taken in by another Richmond family. Edgar and Rosalie both take their foster family's last names as their middle names, hence Edgar ALLAN Poe.
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Along with his foster parents, Edgar moved to London in 1815. While there, he attended school at Misses Dubourg's boarding school and Reverend John Bransby's Manor House School.
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Edgar returned to America with the Allans. They settled back into a home in Richmond, VA. Four years later, Edgar wrote his first poem. It consists of only two lines.
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Edgar enrolled in the University of Virginia, a fairly new college at the time. Throughout the next year, Edgar started gambling, earning a lot of gambling debt that he could not pay off. He asked his foster father to help pay off the debts, but his foster father refused. Edgar soon left the University of Virgina and his foster family because he was unhappy with his foster father's refusal to help.
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Edgar enlisted in the U.S. Army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. He could not use his own name because of his age. Around the same time, his first book, entitled Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published.
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Edgar's foster mother, Frances Allan, died of tuberculosis in Richmond, VA. Edgar received permission to temporarily leave the Army to attend her funeral. Later that year in April, Edgar was appointed to the Military Academy at West Point. Shortly thereafter, Edgar's second book of poems, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems, was published.
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Edgar successfully had himself kicked out of West Point after he repeatedly refused to attend classes and chapel. Soon after, he moved to Baltimore, MD. In August of the same year, Edgar's older brother, Henry, died of either tuberculosis or cholera at the age of 27.
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At the age of 27, Edgar married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, in Richmond, VA. In 1837, Edgar and Virginia moved to New York and then to Philadelphia. They also took Virginia's mother along with them.
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In June of 1838, Edgar's first novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, was published. In 1840, Edgar's story collection entitled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published in two volumes.
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Edgar's wife, Virginia, began bleeding from the mouth because of untreated tuberculosis.
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Edgar's poem entitled "The Raven" was first published in January of 1845. It remains one of his most popular poems ever written.
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Edgar's wife, Virginia, died of tuberculosis at their home in New York, where they had moved to in March of 1844. Edgar began drinking as a result of her death because he couldn't deal with the emotional aftermath.
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Edgar got engaged to Sarah Helen Whitman, a fellow poet, on the condition that he stopped his drinking habit. He did not follow through, so Whitman called off the engagement some time later. In July of 1849, Edgar encouraged his childhood crush, Elmira Royster Shelton, to be his future wife. Edgar also joined the Sons of Temperance, a nineteenth-century organization that did not allow drinking.
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Edgar's unconscious body was discovered in a Baltimore street in October of 1849. The cause of death still remains undetermined. Some possibilities include suicide, murder, cholera, and influenza. Edgar is buried in Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, MD.
