Edgar Allen Poe Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Who was Edgar Allan Poe?
A: Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic.

When was Edgar Allen Poe born?
A: on January 19, 1809.

Where was he born?
A: In Boston.

What was his birth name?
A: He was born Edgar Poe.

He was the second child of whom?
A: English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe.

Who was his father?
A: Actor David Poe Jr.

He had an elder brother named what?
A: William Henry Leonard Poe.

What was his younger sister’s name?
A: Rosalie Poe.

Where did their grandfather David Poe Sr. emigrate from?
A: County Cavan, Ireland.

Edgar may have been named after a character in what?
A: William Shakespeare's King Lear, a play that the couple was performing in 1809.

What did Edgar’s father do in 1810?
A: He abandoned their family.

His mother died a year later from what?
A: Consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis).

Poe was then taken into whose home?
A: The home of John Allan, a successful Scottish merchant in Richmond, Virginia.

The Allans served as a foster family and gave him what name?
A: "Edgar Allan Poe".

They never formally did what?
A: Adopt him.

Where did the Allan family have Poe baptized?
A: In the Episcopal Church in 1812.

The family sailed to Britain in 1815, and Poe attended what?
A: The grammar school for a short period in Irvine, Scotland (where John Allan was born) before rejoining the family in London in 1816.

There he studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until when?
A: The summer of 1817.

Poe moved with the Allan’s back to where?
A: Richmond, Virginia in 1820.

In 1824, Poe served as the lieutenant of what?
A: The Richmond youth honor guard as Richmond celebrated the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.

In March 1825, John Allan's uncle and business benefactor William Galt, said to be one of the wealthiest men in Richmond, died, leaving Allan what?
A: Several acres of real estate.

The inheritance was estimated at what value?
A: $750,000 (equivalent to $16,000,000 in 2017).

By summer 1825, Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing what?
A: A two-story brick home named Moldavia.

Poe may have become engaged to Sarah Elmira Royster before he registered where?
A: At the one-year-old University of Virginia in February 1826.

The university, had strict rules against what?
A: Gambling, horses, guns, tobacco, and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored.

During his time there Poe became estranged from his foster father over what?
A: Gambling debts.

Poe gave up on the university after a year, but did not feel welcome returning to Richmond, especially when he learned what?
A: That his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton.

He traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with what?
A: Odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.

At some point, he started using what pseudonym?
A: Henri Le Rennet.

While in the Army, where was Poe first stationed?
A: At Boston's Fort Independence.

Poe was unable to support himself, so he enlisted in the United States Army as a private on May 27, 1827, using what name?
A: Edgar A. Perry.

He claimed that he was how old?
A: 22 years old even though he was 18.

He first served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor for how much money?
A: Five dollars a month.

That same year, he released his first book, a 40-page collection of poetry titled what?
A: Tamerlane and Other Poems, attributed with the byline "by a Bostonian".

Only 50 copies were printed, and the book received what?
A: Virtually no attention.

He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major for Artillery (the highest rank that a noncommissioned officer could achieve); he then sought to do what?
A: End his five-year enlistment early.

When was Poe was discharged?
A: On April 15, 1829, after securing a replacement to finish his enlisted term for him.

When did Poe publish his second book Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems?
A: In Baltimore in 1829.

In October 1830, John Allan married whom?
A: His second wife Louisa Patterson.

The marriage and bitter quarrels with Poe over the children born to Allan out of affairs led to what?
A: The foster father finally disowning Poe.

His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on what date?
A: August 1, 1831.

After his brother's death, Poe began more earnest attempts to do what?
A: To start his career as a writer.

He was the first well-known American to try to live by what?
A: Writing alone.

Throughout his attempts to live as a writer, Poe repeatedly had to resort to what?
A: Humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

In 1835, Poe, then 26, obtained a license to marry whom?
A: His 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm.

They were married for eleven years until what?
A: Her early death, which may have inspired some of his writing.

After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to what?
A: Prose.

The Baltimore Saturday Visitor awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for what?
A: His short story "MS. Found in a Bottle".

The story brought him to the attention of whom?
A: John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorean of considerable means.

He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of what?
A: The Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond.

Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835, but was discharged within a few weeks for what?
A: Having been caught drunk by his boss.

Returning to Baltimore, Poe obtained a license to marry whom?
A: His cousin Virginia on September 22, 1835, though it is unknown if they were married at that time.

He was 26 and she was how old?
A: 13.

He was reinstated by White after promising what?
A: Good behavior, and went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother.

He remained at the Messenger until when?
A: January 1837.

What did he publish in the paper?
A: Several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories.

On May 16, 1836, he and Virginia Clemm held a Presbyterian wedding ceremony at their Richmond boarding house, with a witness falsely attesting what?
A: Clemm's age as 21.

In the summer of 1839, Poe became assistant editor of what?
A: Burton's Gentleman's Magazine.

He published numerous articles, stories, and reviews, enhancing his reputation as a what?
A: A trenchant critic which he had established at the Southern Literary Messenger.

Poe left Burton's after about a year and found a position where?
A: As an assistant at Graham's Magazine.

In June 1840, Poe published a prospectus announcing his intentions to start what?
A: His own journal called The Stylus.

Around this time, he attempted to secure a position within the Tyler administration, claiming that he was a member of what?
A: The Whig Party.

One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of what?
A: Consumption, now known as tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano.

Poe described it as what?
A: Breaking a blood vessel in her throat.

Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of what?
A: Virginia's illness.

On January 29, 1845, his poem "The Raven" appeared in the Evening Mirror and became what?
A: A popular sensation.

It made Poe a household name almost instantly, though he was paid only how much for its publication?
A: $9.

It was concurrently published where?
A: In The American Review: A Whig Journal under the pseudonym "Quarles".

Poe moved to a cottage located where?
A: In Fordham, New York, in what is now the Bronx.

That home, since relocated to a park near the southeast corner of the Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge Road, is now known as what?
A: The Poe Cottage.

Virginia died at the cottage on what date?
A: January 30, 1847.

Poe was increasingly unstable after what?
A: His wife's death.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to whom?
A: Joseph W. Walker who found him.

Where was he was taken?
A: To the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning.