(1809–49)
a US writer of short stories and poems. His best remembered works are frightening stories of mystery and death, including The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1843). He is also regarded as having invented the modern detective story on the basis of such stories as The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841). His poems include The Raven (1845) and Annabel Lee (1849). Poe drank too much alcohol and died young. There have been film versions of many of his stories.