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Edgar Allan Poe

By CarlaFrias

  • Edgar Allan Poe is born.

    Edgar Allan Poe is born.
    On this day in 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

  • Poe's sister is born

    Poe's sister is born
    Rosalie, sister of Edgar Allan Poe, is said to have been born in December of 1810 in Virginia, but we have no solid documentary evidence for this assertion.

  • Poe's Parents Die

    Poe's Parents Die
    His father, named David Poe Jr., and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors. Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia.

  • Poe Writes His First Poem

    Poe Writes His First Poem
    At fifteen-years-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 enlists in the U.S. Army and shortly after his first book is published

    Poe enlists in the U.S. Army and shortly after his 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. The author is listed only as "A Bostonian."

  • Poe's older brother dies

    Poe's older brother dies
    Edgar's older brother Henry dies of either tuberculosis or cholera at the age of 27.

  • Poe marries his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm

    Poe marries his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia Clemm
    Poe, now 27 years old, marries his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, at a ceremony in Richmond, Virginia

  • Poe writes his first novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym"

    Poe writes his first novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym"
    After reading an 1836 newspaper account of a shipwreck and its two survivors, Edgar Allan Poe penned his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the story of a stowaway on a Nantucket whaleship who finds himself enmeshed in the dark side of life at sea: mutiny, cannibalism, savagery—even death

  • Poe's story collection "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" is published in two volumes

    Poe's story collection "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" is published in two volumes
    It was published by the Philadelphia firm Lea & Blanchard and released 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.'

    Poe publishes the poem, "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 of tuberculosis at their home in Bronx.

    Poe's wife, Virginia, dies of tuberculosis at their home in 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

    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.