Edgar Allen Poe for Biography

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Edgar Allen Poe for Biography

Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. Around this time was the Louisiana Purchase and the ending of importation of slaves. His parents were traveling actors but at a very early age his father deserted his family and his mother died in 1811. So Poe became a ward of John Allen who was a wealthy Richmond merchant. The Allan family lived in the United Kingdom from 1815 to 1820 before returning to Richmond. Poe and Allen’s relationship suffered tremendously making Poe having to make some hard decisions for his future.

After they returned to Richmond, Poe attended the University of Virginia in 1926. Soon after he acquired gambling debts that John Allen refused to pay leading Poe to withdraw from the University. When in 1927 he was enlisted into the Military his first book was published. The title was “Tamerlane and Other Poems”. Poe published his second volume of poems, both collections show influence from Lord Byron. In 1830, Poe entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he excelled in the study of languages. He received help from American novelist John P. Kennedy in winning an editorial post with the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. For the Messenger, Poe contributed reviews, original or revised poems and stories, and two installments of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe worked as an editor and contributor to magazines in several cities, including Richmond, Virginia; New York City; and Philadelphia. He unsuccessfully tried to found and edit his own magazine, which would have granted him financial security and artistic control in what he considered a hostile literary marketplace. But Poe's later rediscovery by the French poets Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and Paul Valery helped restore his reputation.

Poe married in his thirteen year old cousin in 1936, Virginia Clemm. When Virginia died in 1947, Poe then sank into poor health and his literary productivity declined. In 1849, Poe became engaged to marry the widowed Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, his boyhood sweetheart.

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