If so, how was he? Has Poe influenced any other authors (preferably European)? Any help is welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks

Yes, he started reading Poe's stories at the age of 8. Poe appears as a character in the short story "The Exiles," and is mentioned in several of Ray's poems and his nostalgic Halloween article. "Usher II" is based on a Poe theme.

Poe was also a big influence on Jules Verne. Verne once wrote a novel, "The Sphinx of the Ice Fields", which was a sequel to Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym". He also wrote a critical assesment of Poe (contained in the book THE JULES VERNE SCRAPBOOK, edited by Peter Haining, now sadly out-of-print).