An interesting man..................



Poe was born in Boston in 1809 but grew up in Richmond, Virginia and attended the University of Virginia. His early years were plagued by the death of his mother when he was two, his first love when he was 15, and his foster mother when he was 20. After dropping out of college and getting expelled from West Point, Poe took a job as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. His controversial fiction and scathing book reviews boosted the magazine’s circulation seven times in seventeen months, and he only got fired twice in the process. After his second termination, Poe took a series of editorial positions at the leading magazines in Philadelphia and New York and supplemented his income with lectures and public readings. His short story “The Gold Bug” was a smash hit, but the publication of “The Raven” made him internationally famous (while only earning him about $15).