Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), orphaned before age three when his traveling actress mother died in Richmond, Virginia, was raised by merchant John Allan. Enduring lifelong poverty, alcoholism, and devastating family bereavement (including the loss of his young wife Virginia Clemm to tuberculosis), Poe pioneered professional freelance authorship in America.

In 1841, with The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Poe single-handedly invented the modern detective mystery genre featuring brilliant amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin, laying the direct model for Sherlock Holmes. In 1845, the publication of The Raven with its hypnotic incantation 'Quoth the Raven, Nevermore' made him an international sensation. Found semi-conscious in a Baltimore gutter wearing clothes not his own, Poe died mysteriously at forty, leaving behind an indelible legacy championed in Europe by Baudelaire and Mallarmé.