Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was a 19th century poet, novelist and short story writer. He also worked as a literary critic and editor but was more successful as an author.
Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
His life was fraught with sorrow and he died in a pitiful state in Baltimore, Maryland. The precise cause of his death is disputed.
Poe's curious and often nightmarish work greatly influenced the horror and fantasy genres. He is also credited with having been the principal initiator of the genre of detective fiction with his three stories about Auguste Dupin, the most famous of which is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The Mystery Writers of America have named their awards for excellence in the genre the "Edgarssm" (compare with the Oscars etc).
Poe's literary reputation was greater abroad than it was in the United States, perhaps given to the US's general repulsion to the macabre. Rufus Griswold became his literary executor; in fact, Griswold was a rival and an enemy. In the U.S.A., Griswold circulated a "Memoir of the Author" which portrayed Poe as a drunkard and opium addict. These defamatory reminisicences did little to commend Poe to U.S. literary society.
In France, where he is commonly known as "Edgar Poe", Charles Baudelaire translated his stories and several of the poems into French. Baudelaire was the right man for this job, and his excellent translations meant that Poe enjoyed a vogue among avant-garde writers in France while being ignored in his native land. From France, writers like Algernon Charles Swinburne caught the Poe-bug, and Swinburne's musical verse owes much to Poe's technique. Poe was much admired, also, by the school of Symbolism, and Stéphane Mallarmé dedicated several poems to him.
There is no doubt that he inspired mystery writers who came after him, particularly Arthur Conan Doyle in the Hound of the Baskervilles.
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