Edgar Allan Poe: who was The Fall of the House of Usher author, what else did he write, how did he die?

Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most influential writers of fiction to this day, and was a pioneer in the fields of horror writing, detective stories, and science fiction, which was still an emergent genre at the time of his writing.

Poe’s work has had a huge influence not just on literature, but on all aspects of popular culture, and an upcoming Netflix horror series The Fall of the House of Usher is just the latest adaptation of his work.

Like many of the figures in his prose, Poe met a tragic end, dying well before his time and in mysterious circumstances.

Had he lived into old age, we would doubtless have hundreds more short stories, poems, and perhaps even novels under his name. But even though Poe died young, he left behind an impressive body of work that continues to influence us today.

Who was Edgar Allan Poe?

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet and author born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809, who became one of the country’s most celebrated Gothic writers.

Poe’s father abandoned his mother a year after he was born, and the following year his mother died, and Poe was taken in by a couple from Richmond, Virginia. He began his studies at university but left due to a lack of money - he later enlisted in the US army and published his first collection of short stories in 1827.

Having failed to become an officer, Poe focused more on his writing and over his life published more than 70 short stories and over 50 poems, many of which remain popular today. 

Poe also worked as a literary critic and lived in several major US cities including Philadelphia and New York because of his job.

In 1836 Poe married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm, when he was 27 and she just 13. They remained married until Clemm’s death in 1847 from tuberculosis.

Having built a successful, though relatively unprofitable, life as a writer, Poe planned to publish his own journal, however he died before it went to print.

How did Edgar Allan Poe die?

Poe’s death in 1849, aged just 40, remains shrouded in mystery - he was found semi-conscious and in distress in Baltimore and was taken to a local hospital. Though the legend says that Poe died in the gutter, he actually passed away at the hospital four days later - his last words were reportedly ‘Lord help my poor soul’.

When Poe was found on the street he had been wearing another man’s clothes and reportedly kept calling out for Reynolds, though it’s unknown who he was referring to.

Poe was too delirious to explain how he came to be wearing someone else’s clothes or how he came to be fatally ill, and all medical documents concerning his death have since been lost.

It has been suggested that Poe died from alcoholism, though other theories include epilepsy, heart disease, syphilis, and even rabies.

What stories did Edgar Allan Poe write?

Poe wrote many now famous short stories and poems over his career, many of which have been used as inspiration for the Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, the title of which is taken from one of these stories.

Other well-known stories penned by Poe include The Masque of the Red Death, about a masked ball held during a plague outbreak, The Pit and the Pendulum, which tells the story of a man being tortured by the Spanish Inquisition, and The Cask of Amontillado, which follows a man who takes fatal revenge on a friend by entombing him alive.

Poe is also credited as the author of modern detective fiction - his detective stories include The Murders in Rue Morgue, and The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.

Among Poe’s best known poems are The Raven, Annabel Lee, Lenore, and Eldorado. Poe only wrote one novel throughout his life, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, about two stowaways on a whaling ship that meets with disaster. 

When is The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix?

The Fall of the House of Usher is an eight part series that will be released on Netflix in one go on Thursday 12 October.