Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He had no parents to care for him by the time he was three years old. He went to stay with John and Frances Allan in Virginia. When he was older, he went to the University of Virginia. John Allan did not get along well with Poe and would not fully pay for his education. To pay for the rest of his collage, Poe started to gamble. He got himself into debt and had to return home to the Allan family. Upon his return, Poe found that his fiancée had become engaged to another man. His heart was broken until he fell in love with his cousin. They were married in 1836 when she was only 13 years old. Poe based many of his writings off of his newly found love. He wrote a nationally famous poem called The Raven in 1845. His wife died in 1847 when she was about 24 years old. Poe became depressed after losing his wife and his health slowly deteriorated. He died on October 7th, 1849. Some of his fellow writers slandered Poe’s name after his death. People believed Poe had been an insane alcoholic, and Poe himself said “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
