(1809-1849) US writer and poet. His short stories are renowned for their horrific atmosphere, as in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ 1839 and ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ 1842, and for their acute reasoning (ratiocination), as in ‘The Gold Bug’ 1843 and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ 1841 (in which the investigators Legrand and Dupin anticipate Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes). His poems include ‘The Raven’ 1845.
His novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket 1838 has attracted critical attention.
Born in Boston, he was orphaned 1811 and taken in by the wealthy Allan family of Richmond, Virginia. He was, however, disowned by the Allans when he was expelled from both the University of Virginia and West Point. Poe joined the army but was court-martialed for neglect of duty. Although he already had published Tammerlane and Other Poems 1827, Al Aaraaf 1829, and Poems 1831, he failed to earn a living by writing. He became editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. In 1847 his wife died, an event he commemorated in his poem “Annabel Lee.” He became an alcoholic and exhausted himself, dying at age 40. Poe was the first US poet to become internationally known and admired. His verse, of haunting lyric beauty, in, for example, “Ulalume” 1847 and “The Bells” 1849, influenced the French Symbolists.

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