Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts in 1809, the son of an actress and an actor. His father left home when he was only a year old and his mother died shortly afterwards, leaving Poe to be adopted by a wealthy Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, named John Allan, from whom Poe took his middle name. Poe dropped out of University and enlisted in the Army, eventually attending West Point and becoming an officer. He then managed to get himself court-martialed, leaving the army to pursue a writing career in 1831.