Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in Boston, the son of traveling actors. He published his first book of poems Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827, followed by Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (which included "The Fall of the House of Usher") in 1839, but he did not achieve appreciable recognition until the publication of "The Raven" in 1845. He died in 1849.
