His foster father refused to pay any of his debts, resulting in many quarrels with Poe. Possibly with the financial help from his foster mother, Poe came up with the funds to move to Boston.
Poe joined the United States Army in Boston. He did very well there, earning top rank of sergeant major (Nilsson). There he arranged for the publication of his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. It was published, but did not receive .
any significant attention from the public nor the critics (May 1807). He wrote to his foster father many times, pleading to come home. His mother, declining in health, wanted her husband and Poe to forget their differences. Unfortunately, she died before Edgar was able to see her again. This account was devastating to Poe, since their relationship was very maternal. He was voluntarily discharged from the army after her death.
Poe moved to Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. The Philadelphia Saturday Courier published five of his stories after he entered a writing contest (May 1808). He then married his fourteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He took his aunt and his beloved wife to New York with him where he continued to write and have his fiction published.
Poe got a job as a literary critic where he became well known as a great writer and important critic. Over the next ten years Poe established himself as a poet, an editor and a short story writer. Moving back and forth from New York to Philadelphia, he was the editor for the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine and The Broadway Journal (May 1808). He succeeded in establishing his own influential literary theories while reviewing other writers" work, and used these theories in his own work.
The year 1847 was a very devastating year for Poe. His wife became very ill. Her dying hours were very much like Elizabeth Poe's death because Virginia died of consumption and the spitting up of blood.
