Known for his genre of mysterious, macabre and detective fiction, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most remembered poets of all time. Usually, when people think of him, mental images of premature burials, murders, madmen, and mysterious women being snatched from pure death like some zombie-like creatures come to mind. In 1809 Edgar was born the second child of three, two of whom became actors. After the deaths of his mother and father at the age of three, John and Francis Allan raised him in Virginia. Edgar was sent to the best boarding schools and later attended the University of Virginia where he achieved academic results. He was forced to leave due to refusal to pay his gambling debts. In 1827 he returned to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army where his first poems titled Tamerlane and Other Poems were published. In 1835 he began selling short stories to magazines and became the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. His brother Leonard Poe was a poet before his death, and Poe was considered morbid and mysterious. Humiliated by the fact of poverty, he returned to Richmond and from being alone and broke, moved to Baltimore. The first night he returned to Baltimore he was robbed by his cousin. He made several calls to people to find a place to stay and the only person who welcomed him was his aunt Maria Clemm. From his aunt Maria he was introduced to his younger cousin Virginia. Poe, who was about twenty-seven years old, married his cousin Virginia who was just twelve years old. They loved each other so much that they wrote poems to each other to express their love and sang together every night before going to bed. In 1846, Poe moved to New York to continue writing but ran out of paper and wrote poetry as he did. When he and his wife Virginia were still alive, they discovered from medical records that a doctor checking on Virginia had discovered that Poe had a brain fever. From that observation, rumors of epilepsy and diabetes spread. Eventually, the fact that he had rabies was disproved since the hydrophobia ceased to exist. Works Cited "Edgar Allan Poe Museum: Poe's Life, Legacy, and Works: Richmond, Virginia." Edgar AllanPoe Museum: Poe's Life, Legacy, and Works: Richmond, Virginia. 02 February 2014 .Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. 02 February 2014 .http://quotations.about.com/cs/morepeople/a/bls_edgar_allen.htm http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1867198_1867170_1867264,00. htmlhttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edgar_allan_poe.html#5Rt3Y5JmEJogIFxp.99