Edgar Allan Poe

Born

in Boston, Massachusetts, The United States

January 19, 1809

Died

October 07, 1849

Website

http://www.poemuseum.org

Genre

Horror, Poetry, Mystery

Influences

James Hogg Thomas de Quincey, E.T.A. Hoffmann, John Milton, Charles D ...more

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The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre c The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

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Combine Editions
Edgar Allan Poe’s books

Average rating: 4.17 · 1,081,967 ratings · 24,622 reviews · 3,909 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings 4.15 avg rating — 200,309 ratings — published 1982 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Complete Stories and Poems 4.37 avg rating — 166,771 ratings — published 1966 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Essential Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin F. Fisher (Editor) 4.35 avg rating — 63,854 ratings — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, Gustave Doré (Illustrator) 4.28 avg rating — 75,313 ratings — published 1844 — 344 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen Marlowe (Editor) 4.14 avg rating — 58,758 ratings — published 1960 — 76 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cask of Amontillado 4.09 avg rating — 52,706 ratings — published 1846 — 104 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Pit and the Pendulum 4.16 avg rating — 50,774 ratings — published 1842 — 156 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Raven and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Philip Pullman (Introduction) 4.30 avg rating — 36,072 ratings — published 1845 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Byron Glaser , Bill D. Fountain (illustrator) 4.22 avg rating — 43,126 ratings — published 1843 — 178 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of the House of Usher 3.95 avg rating — 33,533 ratings — published 1839 — 306 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Edgar Allan Poe

C. Auguste Dupin (3 books)
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4.10 avg rating — 388 ratings

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe [Stoddard Edition] (1 book)
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4.51 avg rating — 255 ratings

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4.29 avg rating — 222 ratings

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Quotes by Edgar Allan Poe

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

tags: insanity, sanity

13239 likes

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

tags: dreaming, dreams, perception

10214 likes

“We loved with a love that was more than love.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

tags: logic, love

8464 likes

See all Edgar Allan Poe's quotes »

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Peter S. Beagle

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