Page 2 - Edgar Allan Poe

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Name Date of birth Place of birth Family
Educa7on
llustra'on d'Edouard Manet pour la traduc'on de Stéphane Mallarmé de The Raven d'Edgar Poe
Early career
Edgar Allan Poe January 19, 1809 Boston, Massachuse;s
His parens were actors. The father leC the family when Edgar was one year old; when his mother died one year later, he was unofficially adopted by John Allan, a wealthy merchant from Virginia. Hence the addiIon of the surname Allan to the original one. In 1836 he married his cousin Virginia Clemm when she was thirteen.
The Allan moved to London for five years so the young Poe a;ended private schools theren and then returned to Richmond in 1820. In 1826 he went to the University of Virginia where he began to combine gambling with his studies. In 1830 he enrolled at the West Point military academy but he was soon expelled for disobeying orders.
In 1827 Poe published his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and other Poems. In 1831 he published a volume of Poems under his name in New York.
Wri7ng career
In 1838 he published his only novel The narra/ve of Arthur Gordon Pym. From 1839 to 1840 he was editor of the "Gentleman's magazine” and at the same Ime he published his Tales of the grotesque and arabesque which earned him a remarkable reputaIon. In 1845 another collecIon of short stories, Tales came out and got great success with the poem The Raven. In 1846 he published an essay on his aesthethic theories, The philosophy of composi/on. In 1847 his wife died and Poe’s health worsened because of his alcoholism.
In 1849 he was found lying unconscious in a street of BalImore. He died on October 7, 1849
Edgar Allan Poe
Died
Poe’s tales of Ra7ocina7on or Detec7on
Poe is generally considered the inventor of the modern detecIve ficIon and his ficIonal character Auguste Dupin is the first detecIve in ficIon. The character served as the prototype for many detecIves that were created later, including Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and Hercule Poirot by Agatha ChrisIe. Conan Doyle once wrote, "Each [of Poe's detecIve stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed... Where was the detecIve story unIl Poe breathed the breath of life into it?” Auguste Dupin made his first appearance in 1841 in his story Murders in the Rue Morgue, he reappered in the Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) and the Purloined le>er (1844)
IllustraIon to "The Purloined Le;er"