Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school.

His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on August 1, 1831. They may have been expecting verses similar to the satirical ones Poe had written about commanding officers. One theory dating from 1872 suggests that Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.Over the next five years he established himself as a master of the short story form through the publication of "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Tell-tale Heart," and other well-known works.

Now, the enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information, by throwing in the reader’s way piles of lumber, in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed. The Edgar Allan Poe Collection compiles in one place the greatest poems and short stories of an American literary icon.The Raven," "Annabel Lee," the full-length novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and much more. He claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. All the stories just run into each other so you need this table of contents if you want to find a specific story/poem. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe was finally discharged on April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.

The Black Cat is Poe's renowned and blood curdling story of one man's descent into madness, focused on his steadily growing and inexplicable hatred of a once beloved black feline. He revealed his real name and his circumstances to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Howard, who would allow Poe to be discharged only if he reconciled with Allan. This was in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man.Brian Boyd on Speak, Memory Archived 2014-06-29 at the Wayback Machine, Vladimir Nabokov Centennial, Random House, Inc. The sensation that Poe created with his cryptography stunts played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines. Before entering West Point, he moved to Baltimore for a time to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter Virginia Eliza Clemm (Poe's first cousin), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe. He also has recurring themes which undoubtedly spoke more to his age than to ours - people put pre-emptively in their tombs and finding their way back out is a big thing for Poe, and of course now we know this did happen - people were assumed to be dead, and occasionally found themselves with no alternative but to scratch and thump and scream in their coffins in the hope that somebody would hear them before their oxygen ran out or they died of thirst.