A compact biography of Edgar Allan Poe and his close associates, Mr. Poe and Dr. Moran, will prove useful and entertaining to a wide range of readers.  It is based exclusively on authentic historical documents and incorporates passages from many sources which became accessible only after the year 2000, following the introduction of searchable Internet databases.   True-to-life portraiture of the “historical Poe” has always been problematic.  Within a day or two after his death in October 1849, Poe's biography began to be distorted by fabrications and apocrypha.  Oddly enough, the foremost fabricator was also our most intimate and outspoken eyewitness.  The Baltimore physician Dr. John J. Moran, M.D., tried to comfort Poe on his deathbed and then wrote a tactlessly explicit letter of condolence to his anguished next of kin.  Twenty-five years later that same Dr. Moran embarked on a protracted campaign to circulate a thoroughly fabulous account of his patient’s diagnosis and the circumstances surrounding his final hours.  Traces of these notorious fibbings continue to pop up without warning in slipshod popular biographies as well as in medical journals.