Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe who was the middle child of his family was born in the year 1809 on January 19th. His parents, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, and David Poe had two other children, William Henry who died at the young age of 24 and Rosalie. Poe's father died in the year 1810, before his daughter Rosalie was even born. The following year, their mother died. Poe and his siblings moved in with a couple Frances and John Allan, a wealthy merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Poe was too young to remember his parents and adopted Allan's name as middle name since the Allan's were the only parents he really knew.

As mentioned before, the Allan's were wealthy and could afford traveling with young Edgar to foreign countries including England where he attended school. He attended the University of Virginia in 1820 where he studied Latin and poetry and found a love for acting and swimming. During this time Poe developed a gambling problem and although he had a wealthy foster father, he refused to aid in his problem. Poe was then forced to drop out of school and enlisted in the United States Army. In 1829, Poe and Allan reconciled while Frances Allan was dying.

Shortly after, in 1831 Poe was the age of 22 and already had two books that were published. And he moved in with his dear Aunt in Baltimore. Over the course of five years, his cousin Virginia became his love interest. The two were married in 1836 (Virginia was only 13, Poe was 27). The couple then moved to New York City and Poe continued writing and contributing to magazines.

This leads to us to his most famous collection of works; The Raven and Other Poems which was published in 1845. Sadly, two years later in 1847 Virginia died at the young age of 25. Devastated, Poe turned his sadness into addiction where he developed alcoholism and displayed awkward and irregular behavior.

A year later he became engaged to a teenage sweetheart. It was his goal to start a magazine which he would call "The Stylus".

It is still unclear what caused his death on 1849. What is interesting though is that the site of is grave has a stone with a carving of a raven which reads: "Quoth the raven, Nevermore".