9 Intriguing Facts About Edgar Allan Poe

(via Mental Floss) Today, Edgar Allan Poe is regarded as the godfather of the Gothic horror literary genre. His intense tales, like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” grip readers with a terrifying immediacy, making them feel as though they are living through the protagonist’s nightmarish experiences. But it isn’t just Poe’s work that contains such drama; his own life was also quite eventful. Here are nine facts about the idiosyncratic writer that may surprise you.