Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is now famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His tale The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in national US literature.