Edgar Allen Poe. Portrait of Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49), American author and the first person to suggest an answer to Olbers' Paradox which asked why the sky is dark at night. The Paradox, first stated by Heinrich Olbers (1758-1840), centred on why the light from the infinite number of stars in the Universe could not be seen. Poe's solution was that in a static Universe there has not been enough time since the Creation for the light from far-away stars to reach us. He presented his theory in a lecture which was reprinted as an essay in 1848. Poe's theory has since been superseded by theories which include the expansion of the Universe.