Edgar Allen Poe c. 1845

Edgar Allen Poe
Edgar Poe was born in Boston in 1809, and lived his first years in Virginia where his father was a traveling actor. Both parents died when he was three, and he was taken in by a wealthy planter named John Allen, who re-christened him Edgar Allen Poe. At 17, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia. But within a year, Poe gambled himself in to serious debt, which his stepfather refused to cover. Poe withdrew from UVA and joined the army.

That's when his life became interesting. After two years, he was admitted to West Point, and then court-martialed and expelled a year later. He became a writer, loosely attached to the staffs of various newspapers in Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. In 1836, at age 27, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin . In 1844, he settled down in Greenwich Village at a house we'll pass by on our tour. One year later, Poe would finally reach the stardom he craved with the publication of "The Raven.” In 1849, he would die on unknown causes while visiting Baltimore.