Edgar Allan Poe

In a strange turn of events, his first post-mortem biography was written and told by his greatest literary enemy, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who often invented details of Poe's life in order to libel him (as, for example, his supposed alcoholism--Poe had congenital intolerance to it and he was unable to drink alcohol), caused among other reasons by their rivalry for the love of writer Frances Sargent Osgood. It turned into one of the most important cases of defamation in the entire 19th century.

The Raven (2012) is loosely inspired in his last days.

Late descendant Edgar Allan Poe IV played his ancestor in Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Episode LXXXI: The Phantom Menace (1999), Monkeybone (2001) and Brooke Beckman: Haunted MD (2010).

In the September 1996 edition of the "Maryland Medical Journal," Dr. R. Michael Benitez (who ran the coronary care unit at the Baltimore VA Medical Center and taught at the University of Maryland Medical Center) published his conclusion that Poe died of rabies contracted via an animal bite, probably from a pet cat. Poe's symptoms and death indicate he suffered from rabies, a viral encephalitis that attacks the brain and central nervous system. Rabies, which is transmitted from the saliva of an infected animal to the open wound of a new host, is characterized by hydrophobia (fear of water), wide fluctuations in pulse, perspiration, delirium, intense fever, confusion and coma. A patient typically seems to recover, then suffers a relapse. The clinical course of rabies is four days, after which the patient dies without treatment. These were Poe's symptoms, and his case lasted four days before he died. According to Benitez, only twice in recorded history has anyone survived rabies, and "they weren't quite the same people they were before", as rabies causes irrevocable brain damage. Poe kept cats, and although there is no record of his ever having been bitten, Benitez noted that only 27% of recent rabies victims ever remembered the bite. The incubation period can last up to a year. In Poe's time there was no treatment for rabies, which was invariably fatal. For Poe it was almost a case of life (and death) imitating art, an end as inevitable and as gruesome as the sufferings of his tortured characters.

In Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), the teenage Holmes and Watson were fans of Poe's writing.

His most famous stories were produced in a series of successful films by Hollywood during the 1960s.

Pictured on a 3¢ US postage stamp in the Famous Americans/Poets series, issued 7 October 1949.

By that time he published "Al Aaraf" (1929) and "Poems by Edgar A.

There is some mystery surrounding the actual conditions of his death. In October 1849 he was found lying in a gutter, drunk, barely conscious and wearing someone else's clothing. He died shortly thereafter of apparent alcohol poisoning. However, some historians believe that there may have been other reasons for his untimely demise. The most common theory is that he was a victim of a political kidnapping and made to vote in a local mayoral election while dressed up in different clothes and under the influence of massive amounts of alcohol, so that he would not remember anything. Others believe that he may have had a massive brain tumor that led to a stroke; this theory is aided somewhat by the fact that Poe had a rather large, oddly-shaped head.

He did produce, however, a constant flow of highly musical poems, of which "The Raven" (1845) and "The Bells" (1849) are the finest examples.

Poe met Charles Dickens during the Englishman's 1842 tour of America. On March 6, 1842, Poe and Dickens arranged to meet while he was in Philadelphia. Dickens had been greatly impressed by Poe's ability to guess the ending of his 1841 serialized novel "Barnaby Rudge". In the "Saturday Evening Post" edition of May 1841, Poe had reviewed the work, which was being published serially in a magazine a chapter at a time. At the meeting, Dickens agreed to consider writing for the magazine that Poe edited, "Graham's", and to try to find an English publisher for Poe's "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque". Nothing of substance came from either promise. Curiously, Dickens owned a pet raven named Grip, and he had introduced the loquacious raven into "Barnaby Rudge" as a character. In his May 1841 review, Poe commented on the use of the talking raven, saying the bird should have loomed larger in the plot. Literary experts surmise that the talking raven of "Barnaby Rudge" inspired Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven", published in 1845. After Grip died in 1841, Dickens had the bird mounted. It now resides at the Free Library on Logan Circle in Philadelphia, PA.

His works: "The Murder in the Rue Morgue" (1841) is probably the first detective story ever published.

Among his masterful short stories are "Ligeia" (1838), "The Fall of the House of Usher"(1839) and "The Masque of the Red Death". Following his own theory of creating "a certain unique or single effect", Poe invented the genre of the detective story.

Poe" (1831), with the funds contributed by his fellow cadets. His early poetry, though written in the manner of Lord Byron, already shows the musical effects of his verses. Poe moved in with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her teenage daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm, whom he married before she was 14 years old. He earned respect as a critic and writer. In his essays "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe formulated important literary theories. But his career suffered from his compulsive behavior and from alcoholism.

In 1829, he became a West Point cadet, but was dismissed after 6 months for disobedience.

He had no way out and enlisted in the army in May of 1827.

At the same time Poe published his first book, "Tamerlane and Other Poems" (1827).

Member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville (established in 1825 by 16 disgruntled members of the now-defunct Patrick Henry Society). Fellow members include US President Woodrow Wilson, US President James Madison (Honorary), Marquis De Lafayette (Honorary), William Faulkner (Honorary) and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Honorary).

Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and was sent to a boarding school in London, England. He later attended the University of Virginia for one year, but dropped out and ran up massive gambling debts after spending all of his tuition money. John Allan broke off Poe's engagement to his fiancée Sarah Royster. Poe was heartbroken, traumatized, and broke.

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, named David Poe Jr. , and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors.