Edgar Allen Poe
...ng to write poetry. One teacher in Richmond stated “While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet”. Taken by the Allan family to England at the age of six, he was placed in a private school. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1820 he continued to study in private schools and attended the University of Virginia for a year. In 1827 his foster father, displeased by the young man's drinking and gambling, refused to pay his debts and forced him to work as a clerk. Poe, disliking his new duties immensely, quit the job, and went to Boston. There his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), was published anonymously. Shortly afterward, Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and served a 2-year term. He moved to Baltimore, where he lived with his aunt a...