Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and critic, a central figure of American Romanticism. Orphaned young, he was raised by the Allan family of Richmond, Virginia. He worked as a magazine editor in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York, gaining a reputation as a sharp literary critic. He helped shape the modern short story, is credited with popularizing detective fiction through tales such as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and wrote widely read Gothic works including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and the poem "The Raven" (1845). He died in Baltimore in 1849 at age forty.