This Day in History: January 19, 1809

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This Day in History

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On January 19, 1809, American writer Edgar Allan Poe was born. Born Edgar Poe, he was taken in as a foster child by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia, following the death of his mother who had raised him alone following their abandonment by his father. In 1826, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia though he soon abandoned his studies and the university after developing large gambling debts. He soon moved to Boston, Massachusetts, earning a living through various jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer before enlisting in the US Army in 1827. Poe was allowed to leave his enlistment early and given an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point in 1830, but he was dismissed from the academy the next year.

It was at this time that Edgar Allan Poe began to pursue a career as a solely as a writer. His early successes resulted in him being given the position of assistant editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835, though he temporarily lost this job due to being drunk at work before being reinstated under the promise of good behavior. He continued to publish his own works while also bouncing between different publications for employment. Poe planned to start his own journal, though this plan was never brought to fruition before his death.

In 1836, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. By 1842, she had developed tuberculosis and passed away from the disease in 1847. Edgar Allan Poe passed away on October 7, 1849, after having been found delirious in the streets of Baltimore four day previous. Though articles of the time used euphemisms for alcoholism, there is still debate regarding the exact cause of Poe's death with theories including cholera, meningitis, hypoglycemia, suicide, and murder among others. Edgar Allan Poe is buried in the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland.

Edgar Allan Poe's influence upon literature was and is widespread. He was the father of the detective genre and greatly influence the science fiction genre. Sir Author Conan Doyle described Poe's early detective stories as the "root from which a whole literature has developed" while Jules Verne wrote a sequel to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

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