The Raven is published
Edgar Allan Poes famous poem The Raven beginning Once upon a midnight dreary is published on this day in the New York Evening Mirror.Poes dark and macabre work reflected his own tumultuous and difficult life.Born in Boston in 1809 Poe was orphaned at age three and went to live with the family of a Richmond Virginia businessman.Poe enrolled in a military academy but was expelled for gambling.
He later studied briefly at the University of Virginia.In 1827 Poe self-published a collection of poems.Six years later his short story MS Found in a Bottle won 50 in a story contest.He edited a series of literary journals including the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond starting in 1835 and Burtons Gentlemans Magazine in Philadelphia starting in 1839.
Poes excessive drinking got him fired from several positions.His macabre work often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire Stephane Mallarme and even Dostoyevsky.
