- Born:
- Date: January 19, 1809
- Place: Boston, MA
- Family:
- Father: David Poe, Jr. - actor, alcoholic, abandoned wife and
children when Poe was about 2
- Mother: Elizabeth Arnold Poe - actress, took children to Richmond,
VA and died in December 1811
- Siblings: brother William and sister Rosalie
- Step-father: John Allan - wealthy English/Scottish merchant who
took in, but did not legally adopt Edgar
- Step-mother: Frances Allan
- Key events in Poe's life:
- 1815 - John Allan takes Edgar to England where he spends his early
childhood at boarding acadamies
- 1820 - Edgar returns to Richmond to study in private schools
- 1825 - courts Sarah Royster, whom he plans to wed
- 1826 - attends University of Virginia for one year, takes on gambling
debts, which stepfather refuses to pay, learns that Sarah became
engaged to someone else
- 1827 - moved to Baltimore, then to Boston, where he would write
the first poems to bear his real name (he used a pseudonym before),
joined the army
- 1829 - learned that his step-mother Frances died, helping to reconcile
Edgar with John Allan
- 1830 - Allan helped Edgar get into West Point, but Allan remarried
shortly thereafter to a woman who had children, so Edgar knew he
wouldn't be getting an inheritanc
- 1831 - Edgar went back to drinking and gambling, and was discharged
from West Point, moved in with his aunt and cousin
- 1835 - published first horror story, "Berenice" for
Southern Literary Messenger, of which he later became editor of.
It was here that he wrote poetry, short stories, and book reviews,
many of which were harsh and would give him many enemies
- 1836 - married his 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemm, moved to
New York, then Philadelphia
- 1843 - began writing murder stories, from the perspective of the
fictional murderers,
- 1845 - moved back to New York, where he wrote "The Raven"
- 1847 - wife Virginia died, Poe took up drinking again
- 1849 - wrote last poem "Annabel Lee"
- Died:
- Date: October 7, 1849
- Place: Baltimore's Presbyterian Cemetary
- Last words: "Lord help my poor soul."
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