EDGAR ALLAN POE

Writer, inventor of the mystery novel

Edgar Allan Poe lived in Pennsylvania only about six years, but they were the most important years of his writing career. While in Philadelphia, he wrote most of his famous stories, earned his reputation, and invented a new type of literature. The last Philadelphia house he lived in, on 7th Street, was chosen by the U. S. Congress in 1980 as the National Memorial to him.

Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were both actors who died when Poe was three years old. He was taken in by a merchant, John Allan of Richmond, Virginia, from whom he got his middle name. Poe studied for a time in England, attended the University of Virginia for a year, and finally joined the army, largely because Allan was too controlling of Poe's life. By this time Poe had published, at his own expense, his first book, Tamberlane and Other Poems. After a brief time at West Point and in Baltimore, he became an assistant editor for the Southern Literary Messanger in Richmond, Virginia, in 1835. It was then that he began having success in his career. His first love had always been poetry, but he wrote also essays and short stories, and of course reviews for the magazine.

Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838 because of its importance as a publishing center. He hoped to get a job with a magazine to support himself, his wife Virginia whom he married in 1836, and his mother-in-law Maria Clemm. His first year was spent as a freelance writer, finally getting a job in 1939 with Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. In this year he also sold to that magazine his famous story, The Fall of the House of Usher. His work was beginning to get respect and praise.

Poe left the magazine shortly before it was sold, but landed an editor's job at the new Graham's Magazine. Here is where the mystery story was first born, with the publication of Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe left that magazine in 1842 to devote himself to writing and to his wife, whose health was poor as she tried to recover from a ruptured blood vessel. During this time he published pieces in the famous Godey's Lady's Book and the annual publication The Gift. The Pit and the Pendulum and The Purloined Letter were two of these stories. He wrote many other stories while in Philadelphia, including The Tell-Tale Heart and The Gold Bug.

Poe left for New York in 1844 in pursuit of a financial backer for a magazine of his own. Though probably begun in Philadelphia, The Raven was finished and published in New York, and brought him the true, wild acclaim . But Poe was still very poor and was having continuing problems with alcohol and depression. His health suffered. His wife died in 1847 of consumption, and Poe died in October, 1849, in Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 40.