Edgar Allan Poe Accomplishments

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American poets of the 19th century and of all time; famous for his dark and gruesome works about sickness and death, which very much relates to his life. Most of us know the name Edgar Allan Poe from English classes but many of us do not realize the hardship he faced to be as well-known as he is today. Poe now has many famous works that are in English and history books thanks to the detail described in many of his gruesome stories. Although Poe did not achieve much during his lifetime, his name will be known for many generations to come in the English language with his courage to break the mold and create new rules in poetry and create the first detective story ever.

Poe’s life was anything but normal

He had theater in his family, his mother had her debut in Boston at nine years old and critics loved her talents at such a young age. His father, David Poe, was a lawyer but when he married Eliza, he took to the stage with her. Both his mother and father were actors in plays. Edgar Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, with two siblings, an older brother, Henry, and a younger sister, Rosalie, according to Poe’s biography by Milton Meltzer (20). David Poe abandoned the family soon after Edgar was born and Elizabeth died when he was three years old, in December of 1811, shortly after his younger sister was born (Meltzer 20). Henry went to live with David Poe’s parents in Baltimore, while Edgar and Rosalie went to live with the Usher family until they were adopted. Rosalie was adopted by the Mackenzie family in Richmond and Poe was taken into the home of John and Frances Allan, which he got his second last name

Poe’s first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” came out in 1841 and “initiated the modern detective story,” quoted in the book, The 100 Most Influential Writers of all Time and edited by J. E. Luebering (160-161). This story, along with eleven others, was released as if to take advantage of the fame he had received from “The Raven.” This book of stories was the most sold of all of his book with an estimated 1,500 copies sold, earning Poe around $100, stated in one of Poe’s biographies by Peter Ackroyd (131-132). The stories in this book consisted of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” “The Purloined Letter,” “Thou Art the Man!,” “The Gold Bug,” “The Black Cat,” and more when the book was released in 1845 according to a database article “Edgar Allan Poe.” Poe made these stories when crime began to be more common and police forces began to use scientific methods of analysis which is another reason why the book sold so much so quickly, according to an article by Abby H. P. Werlock. These grotesque stories made Poe famous enough that today the award for mystery fiction is called the “Edgar Award” according to a database article by Steven Otfinoski. The stories that Poe had created inspired the detective stories that we know nowadays including the works of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, listed in an