A foundational figure in American literature, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and orphaned young, then raised by the Allan family in Richmond, Virginia. He studied briefly at the University of Virginia and West Point. His poems include The Raven (1845), Annabel Lee (1849), and The Bells, and his collection The Raven and Other Poems appeared in 1845. He also helped establish the short story, gothic fiction, and detective fiction as American forms. He died in Baltimore at age forty.
