The Poet, The Husband, And the Raven by kevin Smith Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second of the three children of David Poe and Elizabeth (Arnold) Poe, both of whom were professional actors and members of a touring theatrical company. Eclipsed by his more famous wife, his own promising career ruined by alcoholism, Poe's father deserted the family when Edgar was still an infant; nothing conclusive is known of his …showed first 75 words of 1789 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1789 total…mind, he was also fascinated by ratiocination: in his three tales featuring Auguste Dupin, he singlehandedly invented the genre of the detective story. And more than anyone else in early nineteenth-century America, he played a crucial role in shaping and elevating literary taste and in developing aesthetic theory, particularly in the field of poetry. Thus, both with critics and scholars and with the general public, Poe remains a permanent fixture of our living literary culture.