Today is the birthday of the poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe, born on this date in Boston in 1809. My mom adored his writing and so by the time I was in 8th grade I’d read almost everything he’d published. Of course he’s best known for The Raven and his horror stories. But you should also know that he essentially created a new literary genre when he wrote The Murders in the Rue Morgue. (Although mysteries were not a new literary form, Poe was the first to introduce a character that solved the mystery by analyzing the facts of the case.) What’s wild to me is that you can pick up most anything he wrote and — more than two centuries later — it will still grab you. He was truly a master of the craft of writing.
See also: I’m Edgar Allan Poe’s Landlord, and He Will Not Be Getting His Security Deposit Back