BIOGRAPHIES
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809,
Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a
writer, poet, literary critic and editor, considered a
central figure in Gothic literature and one of the
masters of the short story.
As the son of a couple of traveling actors, who left
him orphaned at the age of 3, along with 2
brothers, after dying of tuberculosis. He was
adopted by a lawyer named John Allan, who took
him in until his youth. They were some of the quietest years of
Poe's life.
He spent an academic year at the University of Virginia and later
enlisted, also briefly, in the army. Poe showed signs of literary
aptitude, standing out for his academic performance, but an
impulsive, changeable and easily irritable character was already
evident. The first evidence of alcohol abuse occurred at the age of
17, which led to breaking off relations with his adoptive father.
When he was 27 years old, he married his cousin Virginia who later
died of tuberculosis.
Poe was a very handsome boy, not very talkative. Pleasant
conversation, but rather sad behavior. He had a keen capacity for
observation as well as his great intelligence and logic, which also
accompanied many of his police and detective stories, where
inductive thinking is a main piece of the mystery-solving
mechanism. However, he faced many financial, personal, health
and alcohol addiction difficulties, all of which caused severe
depression in him. Despite these difficulties, he managed to
establish himself as an influential writer, publishing works spanning
the genres of horror, mystery, and macabre fiction.
Poe's achievements are unforgettable. During his time as a writer
he developed the police genre, with his story “The Murders on
Morgue Street”, considered one of the first police stories.
Furthermore, his ideas about story structure profoundly influenced
modern fiction. He successfully transported Gothic history across
the Atlantic and wrote classic dark poems such as “The Raven,”
“Annabel Lee,” and “The Bells.”
He finally died on October 7, 1849 under mysterious
circumstances, in Baltimore, Maryland, after being found delirious.
The exact causes of his death remain the subject of debate and
speculation. We admire Edgar Poe because despite his life full of
difficulties, Poe left a lasting legacy in literature, influencing
generations of writers and establishing himself as an icon of horror
and mystery literature.
