On This Day: Literary great Edgar Allen Poe born

Edgar Allan Poe

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It was On This Day in 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, that a literary great was born. Edgar Allen Poe was born today to a pair of travelling actors.

Poe’s parents had both died by the time he was just three years old. He left Boston to live with his godfather, John Allan. Allan was a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Poe’s brother and sister, both older, went to live with other families. William Henry Leonard Poe, a poet as well, is his brother. Rosalie Poe, his sister, taught penmanship at a girls’ school.

Source

Edgar Allan Poe is born. This Day in History. History.com. 19 January 1809.

On This Day is a prompt to further explore historical events.

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