Poe’s Baltimore

Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston and reared in Richmond, remained emotionally tied to Baltimore, where he found love and affection, launched his literary career, and was later buried at Westminster. The Poe family name was held in high regard there, and during the years he lived with Maria and Virginia Clemm and his grandmother at 203 Amity Street, about 1833 to 1835, he gained his first recognition. The 1833 literary contest judged at the Latrobe House launched his career when he won $50 for best short story, "MS Found in a Bottle." Earlier, from 1831 to 1833, he lived in his aunt's household on Mechanic's Row with his brother Henry and his cousin Virginia; Henry died in 1831 and was buried in the family lot at Westminster. After the breakup of the Amity Street household, Poe returned to Richmond and wrote Maria Clemm an emotional letter asking her to join him and seeking Virginia's hand in marriage. He married Virginia in 1836, when she was 13, and her death from tuberculosis at age 24 plunged him into deep depression. Poe, best known for his short stories and poems and regarded as the father of detective fiction, died suddenly under mysterious circumstances on October 7, 1849, several days after being found unconscious on East Lombard Street, and he was buried the next day in his grandparents' lot at Westminster. Virginia's remains were later moved from New York to Westminster on January 19, 1885, the seventy-sixth anniversary of Poe's birthday. Poe is especially associated with "The Raven," a poem published in hundreds of editions in countless languages that gave its name to Baltimore's professional football team.

Baltimore, Maryland · United States