Poe was born in Boston, MA., to parents who were travelling actors. His father David Poe Jr. died probably in 1810 and his mother Elizabeth Hopkins Poe in 1811, leaving three children, of whom William died young and Rosalie ultimately lost her mind. Edgar was taken into the home of a Richmond merchant John Allan and brought up partly in England (1815-20). Never legally adopted, Poe took Allan's name for his middle name.

Poe attended the University of Virginia, but was expelled for not paying his gambling debts. This led to quarrel with Allan, who later disowned him. In 1827 Poe joined the Army as a common soldier. He was dismissed in 1831 from West Point, after one year appointement, apparently as a result of his own determination to be released.

Little is known about his life in this time, but in 1833 he lived in Baltimore with his father's sister Mrs. Maria Clemm. After winning a prize of $50 for the short story MS Found in a Bottle, he started career as a staff member of various magazines, among others the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond and Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia in 1839. There he also wrote some of his best-known stories.

In 1836 Poe married his 13-years old cousin Virginia Clemm, but she bust a blood vessel in 1842 and remainded 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. Dark poem of lost love, The Raven, brought Poe national fame, when it appeared in 1845.

Poe suffered from bouts of depression and madness, and he attempted suicide in 1848. In September the following year he disappeared for three days after a drink at a birthday party and on his way to visit his new fiancée in Richmond. He turned up in delirious condition in Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849.

Poe's works were early recognized especially in France, where he inspired Jules Verne, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), Paul Valéry (1871-1945) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), but his influence is also seen in many modern writers, as in Junichiro Tanizaki's early stories and Kobo Abe's novels, or more clearly in the developement of the1900th century detective novel.

See also: H.P.Lovecraft, who admired Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Nikolai Gogol, Thomas De Quincey, Lawrence Treat and modern police procedural novel

For further reading: Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur H. Quinn (1941); The French Face of Edgar Allan Poe by Patrick H. Quinn (1957); Edgar Allan Poe by Vincent Buranelli (1961); Edgar Allan Poe: The Man Behind the Legend by Edward Wagenknecht (1963); Edgar Allan Poe by David Sinclair (1977); The Tell-Tale Heart by Wolf Mankowitz (1978); The Life and Works by Edgar Allan Poe by Julian Symons (1978); The Rationale of Deception in Poe by David Ketterer (1979); A Psychology of Fear by David R. Saliba (1980); Edgar Allan Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance by Kenneth Silverman (1991)

Museums: Poe Cottage, Poe Park, Grand Concourse and Kingbridge Road, The Bronx, New York: Poe lived there while he wrote Ulalume and The Bells. - Maryland: Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, 203 North Amity Street, Baltimore: House where Poe lived and wrote Berenice.

Selected works:

• Tamelane and Other Poems, By a Bostonian, 1827
• Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems, 1838
• Poems, 1831
• Metzengerstein, 1832
• MS Found in a Bottle, 1833
• Morella, 1835
• Shadow, 1835
• Berenice, 1835
• Loss of Breath, 1835
• Bon-Bon, 1835
• King Pest, 1835
• Ligeia, 1838 - film1964, dir. by Roger Corman
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, 1838 - unfinished
• Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1839
• The Conchologist's First Book, 1839 (ed.)
• The Fall of the House of Usher
, 1839 - film 1960, dir. by Roger Corman
• William Wilson, 1839
• Silence, 1839
• The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, 1839
• The Devil in the Belfrey, 1839
• Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, 1840
• The Man of the Crowd, 1840
• A Descent into Maelström, 1841
• The Island of the Fay, 1841
• The Colloquy of Monos and Una, 1841
• The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1841
• The Masque of the Red Death, 1842 - film 1964, dir. by Roger Corman
• The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, 1842-43
• Eleonara, 1842
• The Oval Portrait, 1842
• The Black Cat, 1843
• The Gold Bug, 1843
• The Pit and the Pendulum, 1843 - film 1961, dir. by Roger Corman
• The Prose Poems of Edgar A. Poe, 1843
• The Tell-Tale Heart, 1843
• The Oblong Box, 1844
• A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, 1844
• The Balloon Hoax, 1844
• The Elk, 1844
• The Assignation (aka The Visionary), 1844
• Thou Art the Man, 1844
• The Spectacles, 1844
• The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, 1845
• The Premature Burial, 1845 - film1962, dir. by Roger Corman
• The Purloined Letter, 1845
• The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, 1845
• The Imp of the Perverse, 1845
• The Raven and Other Poems, 1845 - film The Raven in 1963, dir. by Roger Corman
• Tales, 1845
• The Cask of Amontillado, 1846
• The Domain of Arnheim, 1847
• Eureka: A Prose Poem, 1848
• Mellonta Tauta, 1849
• Hop-Frog, 1849
• The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 1902
• The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, 1948