Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Poe, Edgar Allan 1809-1848

Poet; born in Boston, Mass., Jan. 19, 1809. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was an English actress. They both died early. The son was adopted by John Allan, a rich merchant, who had no children of his own, and Edgar was educated partly at an academy in Richmond, Va., and at the University of Virginia. In 1829 he published a volume of his poems. His foster-father procured him a cadetship at West Point. There he neglected his studies, drank to excess, and was expelled. After that young Poe's conduct seems [235] to have been so obnoxious to Mr. Allan that he was left unmentioned in that gentleman's will. Thrown upon his own resources, young Poe turned to literature as a means for earning a livelihood, and was successful as a writer of both prose and poetry; but his dissipated habits kept him poor. He married a charming young girl, and removed to New York in 1837. His wife died in 1848. Poe's most remarkable literary production, The raven, was published in 1845. At Baltimore in October, 1849, he was discovered in the streets insensible. He was taken to Baltimore, where he died in a hospital, Oct. 7, 1849.