Edgar Allan Poe House

For several years, Edgar Allan Poe lived in this modest home with his invalid grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes, his first cousins Virginia and Henry Clemm, and his aunt Maria Clemm, who was desperately poor but still willing to provide a home for her temperamental young nephew. After cholera appeared in Baltimore during the summer of 1832, the family moved from the relatively congested area of Fell’s Point to this little duplex, then surrounded by countryside and pastureland, at what was then number 3 Amity Street. Here Poe decided to turn from writing poetry to fiction, and a number of his early tales were presumably written in the house, including the gruesome “Berenice.” According to family tradition, a brief marriage ceremony was performed in Baltimore between Poe and Virginia on September 21, 1835, and shortly afterward Poe left for Richmond, Virginia. His death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849, remains a compelling mystery with no firm cause of death, and his burial place at the Westminster Burying Grounds in Baltimore, at the corner of Fayette and Greene streets, became an internationally recognized literary shrine.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States