Poet and writer of tales, was born in Boston. He was adopted by Mr. Allan of Richmond, Virginia.
In 1815 Poe left for England with them, where they remained for five years, and where he received a good education, which was continued on their return to America, at the University of Virginia. He distinguished himself as a student, but got deeply into debt with gaming, which led to his being removed. In 1829 he published a small collection of poems containing Al Araaf and Tamerlane. About the same time he proposed to enter the army, and was placed at the Military Academy at West Point. Here, however, he grossly neglected his duties, fell into the habits of intemperance and finally dismissed in 1831. He then returned to the house of his benefactor, but his conduct was so much objectionable that finally led to a rupture. In the same year Poe published an enlarged edition of his poems, and in 1833 was successful in a competition for a prize tale and a prize poem, the tale being the MS. found in a Bottle, and the poem The Coliseum.
In the following year Mr. Allan died without making any provision for Poe; therefore, he took to literature as a profession, and became a contributor to various periodicals. In 1836, he got married with his cousin Virginia Clemm, a very young girl, who devoted her life to him despite his many aberrations, until her death in 1847. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym appeared in 1838, and in 1839 Poe became editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, in which were issued the Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque definitely his best stories. In 1845 his famous poem, The Raven, came out, and in 1848 Eureka, a Prose Poem, a kind of pseudo-scientific lucubration. The death of his wife gave a severe shock to his constitution, and a violent drinking bout on a visit to Baltimore led to his death from brain fever.The House of Usher, while The Gold Beetle or Golden Bug is one of the first examples of the cryptogram story; moreover, in The Purloined Letters, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue he is to be regarded as the very pioneer of the modern detective story.
From Biographical Dictionary of English Literature - the Everyman Edition of 1910