Page "Edgar Allan Poe" Paragraph 7

He was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second child of English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr.

He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe.

Their grandfather, David Poe, Sr., had emigrated from Cavan, Ireland, to America around the year 1750.

Edgar may have been named after a character in William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play the couple was performing in 1809.

His father abandoned their family in 1810, and his mother died a year later from consumption ( pulmonary tuberculosis ).

Poe was then taken into the home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia, who dealt in a variety of goods including tobacco, cloth, wheat, tombstones, and slaves.

The Allans served as a foster family and gave him the name " Edgar Allan Poe ", though they never formally adopted him.