Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was born Edgar Poe to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts. He was an American poet, short story writer, editor, literary critic, and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre. He was the first American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Poe’s publishing career began humbly with an anonymous collection of poems called Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only “by a Bostonian”. At some point he was using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet. In January 1845, Poe published The Raven to instant success. Some of his other works are: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838); Tales of The Grotesque and Arabesque (1840); and The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe (1843).