American poet, short-story writer, and critic. He is acknowledged today as one of the most brilliant and original writers in American literature. His skillfully wrought tales and poems convey with passionate intensity the mysterious, dreamlike, and often macabre forces that pervaded his sensibility. He is also considered the father of the modern detective story. Edgar Allan Poe first gained critical acclaim in France and England. His reputation in America was relatively slight until the French-influenced writers like Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, and representatives of the Lovecraft school created interest in his work.

Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were itinerant actors. He was abandoned by his father when a baby and his mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, died in Richmond on December 8, 1811. By the time he was three years old, and was taken into the home of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant. The Allans took him to Europe, where he began his education in schools in England and Scotland. At the age of five Poe could recite passages of English poetry.

Never legally adopted, Poe took Allan's name for his middle name. Returning to the United States in 1820, he continued his schooling in Richmond and in 1826 entered the Univ. of Virginia. He became an active member of the Jefferson Literary Society, and passed his courses with good grades at the end of the session in December. He showed remarkable scholastic ability in classical and romance languages but was forced to leave the university after only eight months because of quarrels with Allan over his gambling debts. Allan later disowned him. During his stay at the university, Poe composed some tales, but little is known of his apprentice works.

Poverty soon forced him to enlist in the U.S. Army in 1827 as a common soldier under assumed name, Edgar A. Perry. Because of the deathbed plea of his foster mother, he achieved an unenthusiastic reconciliation with Allan, which resulted in an honorable discharge from the army and an appointment to West Point in 1830. However, when Allan remarried the following year Poe lost all hope of further assistance from him and was expelled from the Academy for infraction of numerous minor rules.

His first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), which Poe published at his own expense, sold poorly. It has become one of the rarest volumes in American literary history.

It was followed by two more volumes of verse in 1829 and 1831. None of these early collections attracted critical or popular recognition. Poe went to Baltimore to live with his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm, and her daughter Virginia. In 1835, J. P. Kennedy helped him become an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond.

He contributed stories, poems, and astute literary criticism, but his drinking lost him the editorship.

In 1836 Poe married Virginia Clemm, then only 13, and in 1837 they went to New York City, where he published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), his longest tale, the secret theme is the terror of whiteness. Poe invented tribes that live near the Antarctic Circle. The strange bestial humans are black, even down to their teeth. They have been exposed to the terrible visitations of men and white storms. These are mixed together, and they slaughter the crew of Pym's vessel.

Poe's slashing reviews and sensational tales made him widely known as an author; however, he failed to find a publisher for a volume of burlesque tales, Tales of the Folio Club.

From 1838 to 1844, Poe lived in Philadelphia, where he edited Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine (1839–40) and Graham’s Magazine (1841–42). His criticism, which appeared in these magazines and in the Messenger, was direct and incisive and made him a respected and feared critic. At that time he also began writing mystery stories. In 1844, Poe moved back to New York, where he worked on the Evening Mirror and later edited and owned the Broadway Journal.

During the early 1840s, Poe's best-selling work was curiously The Conchologist's First Book (1839). It was based on Thomas Wyatt's work, which sold poorly because of its high prize. Wyatt was Poe's friend and asked him to abridge the book and put his own name on its title page - the publisher had strongly opposed any idea of producing a cheaper edition. The Conchologist's First Book was a success. Its first edition was sold out in two months and other editions followed.

Some of his magazine stories were collected as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). It contained one of his most famous work, The Fall of the House of Usher. In the story the narrator visits the crumbling mansion of his friend, Roderick Usher, and tries to dispel Roderick's gloom. Although his twin sister, Madeline, has been placed in the family vault dead, Roderick is convinced she lives. Madeline arises in trance, and carries her brother to death. The house itself splits asunder and sinks into the tarn. The tale has inspired several film adaptations. Roger Corman's version from 1960, starring Mark Damon, Harry Ellerbe, Myrna Fahey, and Vincent Price, was the first of the director's Poe movies.

His wife bust a blood vessel in 1842, and remained a virtual invalid until her death from tuberculosis five years later. After the death of his wife, Poe began to lose his struggle with drinking and drugs. He had several romances, including an affair with the poet Sarah Helen Whitman. In 1849 Poe become again engaged to Elmira Royster, who was at that time Mrs. Shelton. To Virginia he addressed the famous poem 'Annabel Lee' (1849) - its subject, Poe's favorite, is the death of a beautiful woman.

The Raven and Other Poems (1845) won him fame as a poet both at home and abroad, and he enjoyed a few months of calm as a respected critic and writer.

In 1846 he moved to the Fordham cottage (now a museum) and there wrote “The Literati of New York City” for Godey’s Lady’s Book.

Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848.

The circumstances of Poe's death remain a mystery. After a visit to Norfolk and Richmond for lectures, he was found in Baltimore in a pitiable condition and taken unconscious to a hospital where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849. He was buried in the yard of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

Poe's work and his theory of "pure poetry" was early recognized especially in France, where he inspired Jules Verne, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), Paul Valéry (1871-1945) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898). Poe's influence is seen in many other modern writers, and specially in the development of the19th century detective novel J.L. Borges, R.L. Stevenson.

Poe was a complex person, tormented and alcoholic yet also considerate and humorous, a good friend, and an affectionate husband. Indeed, his painful life, his neurotic attraction to intense beauty, violent horror, and death, and his sense of the world of dreams contributed to his greatness as a writer. Such compelling stories as The Masque of the Red Death and The Fall of the House of Usher involve the reader in a universe that is at once beautiful and grotesque, real and fantastic.