Edgar Allan Poe

The first 200 words of this essay...

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 and died on October 7, 1849. He was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales 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 narrative forms of the emergent science fiction genre. Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, rabid cat bites, and other agents.

Edgar Allan Poe was born to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on

January 19, 1809, the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor

David Poe, Jr. Both parents died when Edgar was 3 years old. Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen," it is actually "Allan," after this family.

After attending the Manor School at Stoke Newington, Poe attended the Reverend John Bransby's