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Edgar's odd marriage with his cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm began when he joined his Aunt Maria's household and fell in love. His feelings of love were blocked by his Aunt and not accepted until he promised to provide for Maria, Virginia, and Henry if they were to all come to his home in Richmond.

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Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts, on January 19th, 1809. Edgar's parents were Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr. Because of how poor his parents were, Edgar had to live a tough childhood with many misfortunes.

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Edgar Allan Poe's life was a complete trainwreck. His adoptive   father was extremely harsh with him, he went through alleged affairs that wrecked his marriage, and suffered from many mental diseases such as depression, bipolar disorder, and there are even mentions of alcohol and drug abuse throughout his life.

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Shortly after he was born, 2 years to be exact, his father abandoned the family, then shortly died after that. Edgar was already going through a rough time, sadly soon after his father died, his mother died. The death of his parents not only left Edgar by himself, but his older brother, and their baby sister. They were now orphans.

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Factoring everything he went through in his life, it is no surprise that he suffered from so many mental disorders. He was in terrible debt from school loans to even gambling. He was a soldier in the military for 2 years and had reached the highest rank possible. He then was discharged to go to a military academy for at least a full year. While there, he published his first book called "Tamerlane and Other Poems" in 1827. His books/poems quickly grew fame and he made money off of it. Although as a writer he struggled tremendously and even had a sort of enemy. His name was Rufus Wilmot Griswold. He worked tirelessly throughout his entire life to ruin Poe's reputation and when he died he made his life story even more of a trainwreck than it originally was. He called him a "raving lunatic, gone mad from too much drink and opium".

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Edgar was adopted by John and Frances Allan. His siblings were left behind, and he hadn't seen them since. John and Frances were unable to have children, so they adopted Edgar, which is how he got the name Edgar Allan Poe. He had a great bond with his mom, but not so much with his new dad because  John Allan thought that Edgar didn't appreciate what they did for him.

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When Edgar's love for Virginia was finally accepted, he returned to Baltimore on September 22, 1835 and filed for a marriage license. The license though, was a lie. Virginia's age on the document was much older than her real age, but she still married Edgar on May 16, 1836.

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Poe attended college at the University of Virginia in 1826. He did not like college there. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore describes his experience as, "where for 3 years I led a very dissipated life- the college at that period being shamefully dissolute." This quote shows that he felt scattered in many directions and very confused. This is when he discovered the love of alcohol and gambling.

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Sadly enough, Virginia contracted tuberculosis in January of 1842 and died 5 years later. Because of her death, Edgar had fallen into a depression and visited her grave numerous times. Even though Edgar saw other women after her death, he never loved anyone as much as Virginia Eliza Poe.

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Many tragic events in Edgar's childhood influenced his writing. Some of them are the death of his parents and becoming separated from his siblings. Another tragedy during Edgar's early years was being adopted and having to call someone else his mother and father when he was at an age where he couldn't remember his real parents. Though the tragedies made Edgar feel quite lonely at times, it helped influence his incredible famous writings.

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Poe was living in poverty when his his foster father John Allan died and left Poe out of his will. It wasn't until Poe won a contest in Baltimore Saturday Visiter with one of his short stories that he landed a job as an editor with the Southern Literary Messenger in 1835 and no longer lived in poverty.

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Edgar's first work Tamerlane and Other Poems was published in 1827 by Calvin F. S. Thomas. The collection of poems consisted of 40 pages and was mostly about love, death, and pride. Sadly enough, the work did not attract others until Edgar died and his writings became more famous.

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Edgar's poems “To Helen”, “The Raven”, and “Annabel Lee" were beautifully written works that made him famous. "To Helen" was made in 1831 and was about Helen of Troy, a woman who was said to be the most beautiful in Greek mythology. "The Raven" was published during 1845 and "Annabel Lee" in 1849 which was about the death of a beautiful woman.

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Considering the hatred Griswold had for Poe, many say that Griswold was the cause of Poe's death. He depicted Poe as a psycho in all of his anthologies of Poe and kept all of the profit for himself. Some say that he went as far as to kill Poe and write his obituary just to influence his writings.

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Alcohol and gambling led to a path that veered him off of his path to becoming a writer. He then made probably one of the best decisions of his life. He enrolled into the military using a fake name," Edgar A. Perry." He then rose to the sergeant major rank. He wrote a book of poetry, he did not take credit for the book though. He enjoyed the military so much he decided to enroll at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, but he soon realized that military school is not his cup of tea; he was then kicked out. During this time he published his second book of poetry. After this all happened, his brother passed away and Poe began his life as a starving writer. His foster father was so mad and took Poe out of his will.

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Baltimore City, Oct. 3rd, 1849
"Dear Sir,

There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, he is in need of immediate assistance.

Yours, in haste,
JOS. W. WALKER
To Dr. J.E. Snodgrass".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a letter written before Poe's death and it is the very first confirmable evidence to his whereabouts during his time of death. He had planned to go to Philadelphia when Snodgrass had found Poe in a ditch, in clothes very unlike Poe to ever wear. This theory suggests that Poe had possibly gotten into trouble with earning money in shady ways because he was so in debt. They say that he had tried to earn a little extra cash during poll season because people on a certain side would go as far as to make others dress up as different people and go and vote multiple times and earn money/alcohol in the process, which would explain why he was in different clothing and intoxicated.

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Poe's short story "Murders in the Rue Morgue" was reported to be the first modern detective story made during the 1840s. The story tells about a man in Paris who solves of mystery of two women who were murdered. Though the book received no awards during its time, it influenced Mystery Writers of America to include an award for authors who make amazingly written detective stories.

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Virginia Poe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Eliza_Clemm_Poe

Student Edgar Allan Poe:
veternscribe.com

"Murders in the Rue Morgue" story cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3301759-the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue

Edgar Allan Poe's Memorial Grave:
https://www.eapoe.org/balt/poegrave.htm

John Allan:
https://www.geni.com/people/John-Allan/6000000017190839930

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Base Information:
https://poestories.com/biography.php
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2014000600466

Theory #1:
http://edgar-allan-poe.book-lover.com/griswold.html#targetText=The%20Man%20WHo%20Killed%20Poe's,you%20make%20an%20implaccable%20enemy.

Theory #2:
https://www.poemuseum.org/poes-death

Theory #3:
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-mysterious-death-of-edgar-allan-poe

The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore:
https://www.eapoe.org/works/misc/poeautob.htm

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Edgar Allan Poe had always abused alcohol throughout his life. He would constantly get drunk and some sites even say that he abused drugs as well. The night before he went on the trip to Philadelphia he had gone to the doctors for a said fever. He was supposed to go to New York in September but never showed. He later checked into an inn on October 3rd. There is no knowledge of where he was between this time. Although, the Innkeeper said that he, "was in bad shape, nearly unresponsive in what onlookers assumed was an alcoholic stupor". This suggests that he was taken by alcohol poisoning. Sources say that when he was later admitted in the hospital and was in and out of consciousness and was speaking incoherently which align with the symptoms of alcohol poisoning.

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Overall the death of Edgar Allan Poe may ultimately remain forever unknown. There are many theories, some wacky, and some reasonable. The most common one is alcohol poisoning but others refuse to believe it and say it was his mental disorders or something of the sort. We may never figure out how he truly died, but maybe it's better if we never know.