SOME INFO ON EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; his parents died when he was young. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. After spending a short period at the University of Virginia and briefly attempting a military career. Poe's publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem "The Raven" to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years later. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre. Poe also wrote satires, humor tales. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance. Poe also reinvented science fiction.

His influence in pop culture has been considerable and long-standing, with the works, life and image of the horror fiction writer and poet inspiring scrip-writers, composers and musicians from diverse genres for more than a century.

Selected list of works
Tales
"The Black Cat"
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
"The Oval Portrait"
"The Premature Burial"
"The Purloined Letter"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
Poetry
"Annabel Lee"
"The Bells"
"The City in the Sea"
"A Dream Within A Dream"
"Eldorado"
"The Haunted Palace"
"To Helen"
"Lenore"
"The Raven"