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I was born to a Scots-Irish family in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the son of an actress and actor. The second of three children, my elder brother was William Henry Leonard , and younger sister, Rosalie. My father abandoned our family in 1810. My mother died a year later from "consumption". I was then taken into the home of John A, a successful Scottish tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. The family traveled to England in 1815, and I sailed with them. I attended the Grammar School in Irvine, Scotland for a short period in 1815, before rejoining the family in London in 1816. I studied at a boarding school in Chelsea until the summer of 1817. I was then entered at Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington, then a suburb four miles north of London. I moved back with the As to Richmond, Virginia, in 1820. I registered at the University of Virginia in 1826, but only stayed there for one year. I became estranged from my foster father over gambling debts I had acquired while trying to get more spending money, and traveled to Boston under the assumed name of Henri Le Rennet, arriving there in April 1827. That same year, I released my first book (anonymously as "a Bostonian"), Tamerlane and Other Poems; a surviving copy of this rare book has sold for $200,000. Reduced to destitution, I enlisted in the United States Army as a private, using the name Edgar A. Perry on May 26, 1827, and served at Fort Independence in Boston Harbor. The regiment was posted to Fort Moultrie, Charleston, South Carolina. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of sergeant major, I was discharged on April 15, 1829. I moved to Baltimore, Maryland to stay with my widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, her daughter, my first cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm, and my brother Henry. In 1829, my foster mother, Frances Allan, died. As was my foster mother's dying wish, John A reconciled with his foster son, and began coordinating an appointment for him to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Meanwhile, I published his second book, Al Aaraaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems in Baltimore in 1829. I traveled to West Point, and took my oath on July 1, 1830. John A married a second time. The marriage, and bitter quarrels with me over the children born to A out of affairs, led to the foster father finally disowning me. I decided to leave West Point, and went on strike, refusing to attend formations, classes, or church. I was court-martialed for disobedience. I left for New York in February 1831, and released a third volume of poems, Poems, Second Edition. I returned to Baltimore, to my aunt, brother and cousin, in March 1831. Henry died from tuberculosis in August 1831. I turned his attention to prose, and placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication. I also began work on my only drama, Politian. The Saturday Visitor, a Baltimore paper, awarded a prize in October 1833 to my The Manuscript Found in a Bottle. The story brought me to the attention of John P. Kennedy, a Baltimorian of considerable means. He helped me place some of my stories, and also introduced me to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. I became assistant editor of the periodical in July 1835. Within a few weeks, I was discharged after being found drunk repeatedly. Returning to Baltimore, I secretly married Virginia, my cousin, on September 22, 1835. She was 13 at the time. Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, I went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother, and remained at the paper until January 1837. During this period, its circulation increased from 700 to 3500. I published several poems, book reviews, criticism, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, I entered into a bond of marriage in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.