The Strange Life of Edgar Allan Poe

|
Portrait of American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) against a green background and under an embossed presentation of his last name, probably taken from a cigar box, 1900. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Edgar Allan Poe was the Stephen King of his day. The American author specialized in the morbid and the macabre in his short stories and poems, much to the fascination of his fans. Born in Boston in 1809, Poe is more closely associated with the city of Baltimore, where he spent the bulk of his adult life. Heck, the city of Baltimore even named their NFL team after Poe’s most famous work, "The Raven." The life and death of Edgar Allan Poe was almost as strange and puzzling as the characters in his stories, and he certainly broke a few societal norms and literary standards.