Short answers, pulled from the story.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on the 19th of January, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. He died on the 7th of October, 1849, in Baltimore, at the age of 40, under mysterious circumstances that have never been definitively explained.
The cause of Poe's death remains unknown. All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Proposed causes include delirium tremens, epilepsy, rabies, syphilis, carbon monoxide poisoning, and cooping, an electoral fraud scheme involving forced voting. He was found semiconscious on a Baltimore street on the 3rd of October, 1849, and died four days later.
Poe is credited as one of the pioneers of detective fiction, through his tales featuring the detective C. Auguste Dupin. He was among the first successful practitioners of the American short story and contributed significantly to the emergence of science fiction. He was also the first well-known American writer to earn a living exclusively through writing.
Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an editor and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. On the day of Poe's burial, Griswold published a defamatory obituary in the New York Tribune under the pseudonym "Ludwig." He later became Poe's literary executor and included a biographical memoir in an 1850 collection depicting Poe as a drug-addicted madman, supporting the claims with letters later revealed to be forgeries.
Poe was paid $9 for "The Raven" when it appeared in the Evening Mirror on the 29th of January, 1845. Despite making him a household name almost immediately, the poem earned him almost nothing.
Poe published an essay called "A Few Words on Secret Writing" in Graham's Magazine in July 1841 and incorporated ciphers into his story "The Gold-Bug," sparking wide public interest in cryptograms. Two ciphers he published under the name W. B. Tyler in 1841 remained unsolved until 1992 and 2000 respectively. William Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, credited reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child with inspiring his career, including his later work deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II.