Influential Figures - Edgar Allan Poe

Casey Childs, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Charcoal, 14x8.5″

Edgar Allan Poe - American novelist

• Born: January 19, 1809
• Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
  
• Died: October 7, 1849 in Baltimore, Maryland (cause unknown)
• Best Known Work: The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-tale Heart...

Edgar Allan Poe, an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. 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 and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

And here's the list of "Influential Figures" we've come up with so far:

Dr Seuss, Baden Powell, Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Hughes, Alexander Graham Bell, Hitler, Walt Whitman, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, William F. Cody, Theodore Roosevelt, JFK, Walt Disney, Robert Frost, Babe Ruth, Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan, Amelia Earhart, Alice Paul, Coco Chanel, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Wilberforce, Karl Marx, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Tubman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mahatma Ghandi, Sojourner Truth, Custer, Billy the Kid, Old Tom Morris, Bobby Jones, John Singer Sargent, Nicholai Fechin, Thomas Edison, Tesla, Einstein