by Dustin Baker

Created on: February 15, 2009

Edgar Allen Poe was a man who grew up with a very troubled childhood. He had many people that he loved die and leave him alone. It was all this death and his troubled childhood that made him one of the best horror writers in American history.

Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 9th in a boarding house in the Boston Common. Both of his parents were actors. His dad, David Poe, Jr., abandoned his family. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, died of Tuberculosis in 1811, leaving Edgar, Edgar's older brother, William Henry Leonard, and Edgar's younger sister, Rosalie, behind. Edgar was taken into the home of John and Frances Allan, while his brother and sister were taken by others. William Henry Leonard died young, and Rosalie later became insane. Poe did not have a happy childhood. John Allan and Poe did not get along. Poe later left.

Poe later moved in with his aunt Clemm and cousin Virginia. Poe had begun writing and had come out with poems, short stories and novels. Some of Poe's most famous works are as follows: The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, Hop Frog, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe ended up marrying his thirteen year old cousin Virginia. Virginia later died in 1847 of Tuberculosis.

Edgar Allen Poe is and will always be known as one of the best authors in American history. His three hundred and fifty poems, short stories, essays, novels, critical articles, and numerous anonymous writings will live on forever. Edgar Allen Poe died on October 7, 1849 at age 40. His death was two years after Virginia's. No one knows for sure how he died, but some say that is could have been drugs, alcohol, brain congestion, drugs, suicide, rabies, Tuberculosis, and others.

This is my insight to inform you on Edgar Allen Poe's troubled life and how he used it to come up with some of the best works in American Literature today.

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