Edgar Allan Poe was a person.
Edgar Allan Poe . He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole , and he was one of the country 's earliest practitioners of the short story . He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone , resulting in a financially difficult life and career . Poe was born in Boston , the second child of two actors . Thus orphaned , the child was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond , Virginia .