Full Name: Edgar Allan Poe | Profession: Poet, Writer, Editor, and Literary Critic | Nationality: American | Born: January 19, 1809 | Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Generation: Romantic Era | Chinese Zodiac: Earth Snake | Zodiac Sign: Capricorn | Age in 2026: 217 (deceased) | Marital Status: Married to Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe | Children: None | Description: Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most influential and mysterious literary figures in world history, whose revolutionary approach to storytelling, poetry, and psychological depth permanently altered the landscape of modern literature, creating the foundations of the detective genre, the modern horror story, and psychological suspense, with masterpieces such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which combined haunting atmosphere, precise structure, and intense emotional resonance to explore themes of madness, grief, obsession, and the fragility of the human mind, while his poetic works introduced a new musicality and symbolic richness that inspired generations of poets and artists across Europe and America, and despite living a life marked by poverty, tragedy, and personal loss, Poe maintained an unwavering dedication to artistic perfection, developing literary criticism as a serious intellectual discipline and advocating for originality, craftsmanship, and aesthetic unity, and his posthumous influence became even greater, inspiring figures such as Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Lovecraft, and countless modern writers and filmmakers, making him not only a towering figure of American literature but a global architect of modern narrative art; Cause of Death: Encephalitis and complications of alcoholism, October 7, 1849.