dipity

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, literary critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.

Born in Boston, Edgar Poe's parents died when he was still young and he was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia. Raised there and for a few years in England, the Allans raised Poe in relative wealth, though he was never formally adopted. After a short period at the University of Virginia and a brief attempt at a military career, Poe and the Allans parted ways. Poe's publishing career began humbly with an anonymous collection of poems called Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only "by a Bostonian." Poe moved...

Created by dipity on Jan 23, 2008

Last updated: 03/11/10 at 04:14 PM

• Edgar Allan Poe Died
  Oct 6, 1849

  Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore, Maryland, Maryland

• Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
  1839

• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
  1837

  The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe's only complete novel, published in 1838. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away aboard a whaling ship called Grampus. Various adventures and mis-adventures befall Pym including shipwreck, mutiny and cannibalism. The story starts out as a fairly conventional adventure at sea, but it becomes increasingly strange and hard to classify in later chapters, involving religious symbolism and the Hollow Earth. Poe wrote the novel with a deliberate and experimental structure whereby the mood of each chapter was matched by the corresponding chapter at the other end of the book. The novel begins with Arthur Gordon Pym, a name similar to Edgar Allan Poe, departing from Edgartown, Massachusetts on Martha's Vineyard. In a voyage of discovery, the protagonist is actually sailing away from himself, or his ego. Unlike previous sea voyage tales that Poe wrote (i.e. "MS. Found in a Bottle") Pym is...

• Edgar Allan Poe's Birthday
  Jan 18, 1809

  Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Suffolk County