Edgar Allan Poe has been widely renowned as one of the most influential and original writers ever known. He was also labeled many things, both good and bad, more so bad than good, but I am offering supporting facts as to how is lifestyle influenced his writings which influenced the American writers of modern times. Poe's influences can be found in nearly all American poetry, and prose, namely symbolism.
             Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, where his mother and father David and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, who had been employed as actors, by Mr. Placide's Theatre Company. They were married in Boston while on tour in 1806. His father, a drunkard, deserted both he and his mother on a stormy night and disappeared forever never to be seen or heard from again. His mother was forced to raise him alone and on the road, but while in Richmond on December 8, 1811 Elizabeth Arnold Poe died
             of unknown reasons. Edgar, not quite three at the time was taken in by a Richmond family John and Frances Valentine Allan. Poe's little known sister, Rosalie, by another Richmond family, William and Jane Scott MacKenzie. Edgar's foster parents so-to-speak, Mr. Allan was a partner in the merchant firm Ellis and Allan, which was a small law firm of sorts, which catered to the middle classes more than any other. He grew up with them in their loft apartment over the firm's offices at Thirteenth and East main streets. Poe also adopted his middle name, Allan, from his foster parents (poemuseum.org). His parent's desertion and death's may have possibly had some large influence in his writings, perhaps his obsession with gloomy, and morbid atmospheres. His mother Elizabeth was buried in the yard of St. John's Episcopal Church where her memorial stone may be seen to this day. St. John's is also the oldest church in Virginia, and is also the site of Patrick Henry's famous liberty or death speech before the r...