5 Favorite Posts on Edgar Allan Poe

In honor of Edgar Allan Poe's 205th birthday (he was born in Boston on January 19, 1809), here are five of my favorite posts that I've written about Poe in the several years since I created this site. They are presented here in no particular order and were chosen not based on popularity but just how interesting I personally find them.

5. Poe on stage: rather tedious
First published: August 8, 2012

If people think today's adaptations of the work of Poe are new or unique, they are sorely mistaken. The first stage adaptation of one of Poe's tales, "The Gold-Bug," premiered in Philadelphia all the way back in 1843. Not unlike today's adaptations, this one was deemed to be terrible. Incidentally, I often like to point out that "The Gold-Bug" was one of Poe's most well-known works in his lifetime, much more than the horror stories we know him for today.

4. Poe and Darley: In his best manner
First published: January 31, 2011

Speaking of "The Gold-Bug," that same tale inspired some of the earliest illustrations of Poe's works. In this case, the illustrator was Felix O. C. Darley (who also created the caricature of Poe seen at right). More importantly, however, Poe and Darley signed an agreement that would have made the young artist the official illustrator for The Stylus, Poe's long-imagined literary journal. Few 21st century Poe fans seem to recognize the importance of this project, nor how close it came to becoming a reality.

3. The fever called Living
First published: April 28, 2010

For someone who runs a web site based on anniversaries in literary history, this one was a no-brainer. One of Poe's greatest poems, "For Annie," was concurrently published on April 28, 1849 in two different periodicals. It was also one of his final works in the months before his death. It helps, too, that the poem is very Poe-like as an odd celebration of death. It is, however, one of his most poetic of poems. The post also inspired a great number of comments, which you can still read if interested.

2. A great Poe hoax
First published: August 2, 2010

Imagine finding an unpublished manuscript poem by Edgar Allan Poe over 20 years after his death, at a time when fervor for Poe is soaring. Now, imagine your discovery being published in New York, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and nearly every other major city in the country, causing a fantastic stir and instant fame on the person who found the poem. Now imagine the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by an up and coming poet who happened to have been born the very day that Poe died. James Whitcomb Riley proved his point — and, frankly, Poe would have enjoyed the ruse.

1. Edgar Allan Poe is dead
First published: October 9, 2010

Today, one simply cannot discuss Edgar Allan Poe without discussing Rufus Wilmot Griswold, the man who popularized the "myth of Poe." That myth — which portrays Poe as a drunk, drug-addled madman, a loner without friends, who bordered on insanity — owes much of its origins to this obituary written by Griswold immediately after Poe's mysterious death in 1849. Regardless of its veracity, the Poe myth has enthralled generations of fans and readers — and made Griswold into the consummate literary villain.

For those interested in continuing the legacy of Poe on his birthday in the city of his birth, please join the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston as we attempt to raise the funds necessary to create and install a life-sized statue of him near his birthplace. Every donation is important as we reach the final stages of this effort. You can donate safely and securely online.

Poe on stage: rather tedious

Edgar Allan Poe and his work have become a mainstay of popular culture; his writings and his life story have been the inspiration for countless films, TV episodes, radio broadcasts, stage performances, and music (with varying degrees of success). Among the earliest, however, was one he may have witnessed in his own lifetime.

"The Gold-Bug" was both the most popular of Poe's works as well as the most lucrative for the author himself. The story follows the seemingly insane William Legrand in a search for buried treasure left behind on a South Carolina island by the pirate Captain Kidd. In his quest for the lost pirate gold, he solves a series of riddles, the first of which was in the form of a golden-colored scarab beetle. The initial publication of this innovative story in June 1843 earned Poe an impressive $100 award. was widely reprinted after its initial publication. It is believed to be Poe's widest-circulated work during his lifetime.

More surprisingly, it was the first of Poe's works adapted for the stage. On August 8, 1843, "The Gold-Bug" premiered at Philadelphia's American Theatre. Written by Silas Steele, the play was not as successful as the fictitious hero Legrand. A review in the local newspaper The Spirit of the Times by its editor John Du Solle noted: "Mr. Steele had a good house at his benefit on Tuesday night, and the performances were generally good. The Gold Bug, however, dragged, and was rather tedious. The frame work was well enough, but wanted filling up."

In truth, "The Gold-Bug" could not be easily replicated on stage. The most novel aspect of the story was its riddles, with which readers could play along, including the famous cryptogram in the form of a substitution cypher. To solve it, one might need a paper and pencil (as well as some thoughtful time) which, presumably, the American Theatre did not provide that day.

Lowell and Poe: lacking in character

James Russell Lowell and Edgar Allan Poe had been friends and colleagues; both were poets, prose writers, critics, and editors. As Poe became more daring in his role as a literary critic, however, he alienated more and more people, most often because of his frequent accusations of a lack in originality. Lowell wrote to his friend (and a former business partner of Poe) named Charles Frederick Briggs on August 21, 1845:

Poe, I am afraid, is wholly lacking in that element of manhood which, for want of a better name, we call character. It is something quite distinct from genius—though all great geniuses are endowed with it... I have made Poe my enemy by doing him a service. In the last Broadway Journal he has accused me of plagiarism, and misquoted [William] Wordsworth to sustain his charge... Poe wishes to kick down the ladder by which he rose. He is welcome.

The Broadway Journal, which Lowell alludes to, was a newspaper founded by Briggs with John Bisco. The two brought in Poe within its first year as a one-third owner of the publication. Poe was enlisted specifically because of his reputation and ability to draw attention. Briggs, however, soon left his project when he saw how caustic Poe had become in his reviews. Bisco left soon after, leaving the Broadway Journal in debt and solely in the control of Poe. He did the best he could, but the journal folded within another year.

Lowell became part of the New England literary elite despite early difficulties in his career, and was happy to remove his connection to Poe. Lowell had published Poe's famous story "The Tell-Tale Heart," for example. Only a few months before this letter, in fact, instead of criticizing Poe's lack of character, Lowell had offered this view of him:

Mr. Poe has that indescribable something which men have agreed to call genius. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its power... It is not for us to assign him his definite rank among contemporary authors, but we may be allowed to say that we know of none who has displayed more varied and striking abilities... Mr. Poe is at once the most discriminating, philosophical, and fearless critic upon imaginative works who has written in America. It may be that we should qualify our remark a little, and say that he might be, rather than that he always is, for he seems sometimes to mistake his phial of prussic-acid for his inkstand." 

The above quote was published in Graham's Magazine, February 1845.

Poe and Willis: good word in season

From his quaint cottage at Fordham, New York, Edgar Allan Poe wrote to editor and poet Nathaniel Parker Willis on April 20, 1849:

The poem which I enclose, and which I am so vain as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It pays well as times go — unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses... may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to light in the Home Journal?

Poe and Willis had been running in the same circle for years: both were editors, critics, and publishers in addition to writers themselves. Willis had founded the Home Journal, which exists today as Town and Country magazine. At the time of this letter, the final year of Poe's life, most of his new works were published in Boston's Flag of Our Union — a weekly newspaper which Poe (and others) considered trashy and certainly not high literature. In fact, Poe even suggested Willis not bother mentioning the Flag if republished. The poem, "For Annie," is now recognized as one of Poe's greatest.

About four years earlier, Willis had also republished another poem which Poe hoped would have wider circulation: in 1845, Willis republished "The Raven" in the New York Mirror. Willis's publication of that poem was the first to include Poe's name. Poe concluded his 1849 letter referencing that publication:  "I have not forgotten how a 'good word in season' from you made 'The Raven'" (emphasis mine). Poe died less than six months later.

The home where the letter was written, the Poe Cottage, is now run by the Bronx County Historical Society and is undergoing substantial repairs. A new visitor center is also being built. It will reopen to the public soon.

Poe and Darley: In his best manner

It had been the dream of Edgar A. Poe to establish his own literary journal, one which maintained such high standards of excellence that it would serve as the flagship of great American writing. He first announced The Penn (based in Philadelphia) in 1840 before deciding to aim more nationally. Poe came close to achieving his goal when the project, reborn as The Stylus, enlisted the help of an up-and-coming illustrator named Felix Octavius Carr Darley, who was already illustrating Poe's most well-read story "The Gold-Bug."

On January 31, 1843, Poe and F. O. C. Darley signed a contract; Darley agreed to provide "original designs, or drawings (on wood or paper as required) of his own composition, in his best manner." He agreed to design up to five images per month at the rate of $7 each. Poe knew that a well-illustrated magazine sold well (one of the reasons Graham's Magazine was so popular while Poe was its editor).  

The Stylus would have been under the complete editorial control of Poe and he would establish its standards from the ground up (unlike The Broadway Journal, for which Poe later became editor and sole proprietor). It would have allowed Poe to continue, without oversight, the type of "tomahawk" criticism for which he was known, sparing no harsh words in his own efforts to push American writers to work harder and write better.

The Stylus never came to be and Poe died in 1849, still hoping it would become reality. The same year as Poe's death, Darley (later acknowledged by some as the father of American illustration) illustrated a satirical poem which poked fun at literary figures — including Poe, his would-be boss:

With tomahawk upraised for deadly blow,
Behold our literary Mohawk, Poe!
Sworn tyrant he o‘er all who sin in verse—
His own the standard, damns he all that’s worse;
And surely not for this shall he be blamed—
For worse than his deserves that it be damned!

Edgar Allan Poe is dead

He collected several anthologies, among the highest-selling books in the entire century. An influential editor, a prolific literary critic and essayist, and one of the most well-read men in the United States, Rufus Wilmot Griswold's reputation today rests on one obituary that he wrote. First published on October 9, 1849, in the New York Tribune, the obituary began:

Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it... He had few or no friends. The regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic stars.

Griswold's description of Poe claimed his "choler" was quickly raised, that he was plagued with gnawing envy, and that he believed all people were villains. His career, said Griswold, was spent seeking success only for a "right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit." Much of Griswold's characterization of Poe was stolen verbatim from a work of fiction by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

One of the earliest responses to Griswold's posthumous attacks on Poe came from George Lippard, the young Philadelphia novelist who considered Poe a mentor. In several articles, Lippard both defended Poe and attacked Griswold. At one point, he said that he would give more for Poe's toe nail than for "Rueful Grizzle's soul." Lippard predicted Poe's fate:

As an author his name will live, while three-fourths of the bastard critics and mongrel authors of the present day go down to nothingness and night. And the men who now spit upon his grave, by way of retaliation for some injury which they imagined they have received from Poe living, would do well to remember, that it is only an idiot or a coward who strikes the cold forehead of a corpse.

*The debate between Griswold and Lippard over the legacy of Poe continues this month (October 2010) at the Rye Arts Center in New York as part of their annual "POE: EVERMORE." The original script was written by me, your faithful American Literary Blogger; I'll also be performing as Mr. Lippard.

Guest post: Death of Poe and Holmes

*Today's guest blog is by novelist Matthew Pearl, whose historical fiction mysteries include The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow. His third novel, The Last Dickens, follows the publisher James R. Osgood in pursuit of the last manuscript of Charles Dickens. Matthew has also written a two-part guest blog for The Edgar Allan Poe Calendar. For more information, please visit his web site.

Edgar Allan Poe and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. both died on October 7, one in 1849, the latter in 1894. There are many interesting ways to compare and contrast Holmes and Poe from the points of view of a biographer, a historian, or a reader. I have some thoughts on the two figures from the perspective of a fiction writer who has used both as characters in novels.

I chose Holmes as the central figure in my first novel, The Dante Club. This was not an obvious decision, because the story (as the title suggests) really is an ensemble, and I had my pick of terrific historical personalities from a small group that helped complete the first American translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. For a while, I leaned toward James Russell Lowell, another colorful poet and close friend of Holmes's. Why did I end up hitching my wagon to Holmes? Holmes's strength as a character reflects one of his personal strengths in life: versatility. In writing a novel about poets who must embark on a dangerous investigation, the historical novelist could ask for no better recruit than Holmes: not only a popular poet, but a Harvard Medical School professor, a physician, and himself a novelist — not to mention a savant at conversation, wit and socializing.

Think of the challenge of writing about writers and trying to make it engaging and dramatic. A writer's central occupation involves sitting at a desk and, well, writing, and their personalities are often introverted. Not material that necessarily lends itself to external drama. Being one myself, I know I'd make a pretty boring character! No wonder doctors, lawyers and police officers are such frequent choices as protagonists for books, films and television. But Holmes erases these worries, and grants you wonderful settings for scenes, as well, other than a writer's library. I'm not the only one to think so, either: check out Tess Gerritsen's The Bone Garden for another Holmes adventure.

Poe presents such a different profile to the fiction writer. His persona is so larger than life and enigmatic, many novelists are tempted to make him come off as somewhat demented, similar to some of the characters he created. Fellow novelist Louis Bayard and I actually contributed a joint article about the appeal of using Poe as a character for Poe Studies journal. Unlike Lou, whose novel The Pale Blue Eye caught up with Poe as a young cadet at West Point, in my novel, The Poe Shadow, Poe has just died and the intrigue surrounding his death animates the story. I've told Lou I think he's very brave by using Poe as a character. For me, trying to compete with reader's own ideas of what Poe would be like as a person was too daunting, and a hit-or-miss proposition. Unlike Holmes, whom many of my readers discovered for the first time in my novel, everyone has their "own" Poe. That's part of the way I wanted instead to use Poe's "shadow": to show how unattainable the real Poe is, and how that could send my characters on an adventure of discovery that, in the context of my novel, becomes a matter of life or death.

I also liked the idea of reminding my readers that enjoying and caring about Poe in 1849 took courage and originality, that he was not the icon he is today. Having this distance from Poe, rather than placing him center stage as a character, also allowed my characters to realize, as I did, that, unlike the mythical Poe, at the end of the day Poe was looking for a normal, stable, family and financial life... one that might have looked something like Holmes's, had Poe survived long enough to see his plans through.

Great Astronomical Discoveries

Reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science, the August 25, 1835 issue of The New York Sun newspaper, reported on "Great Astronomical Discoveries" made by John Herschel, a well-known British astronomer. Herschel had invented a particularly strong telescope, with which he was able to observe the surface of the moon. The article asserted that Herschel's discoveries would forever mark this age one of the greatest in human knowledge.

After a long description of the telescope itself and how it works, the article ends with this tantalizing suggestion: "He expressed confidence in his ultimate ability to study even the entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects upon her surface." Insects! Five more installments followed this first article, each describing more impressive observations. Herschel had witnessed with his own eyes the true nature of the moon: trees, oceans, beaches, mountains. Readership of The Sun increased rapidly as these descriptions continued over the next few days. Most shocking were the reports of the moon's animal life: bison, goats, unicorns, and even humanoid creatures with bat-like wings. The society on the moon looked something like this:

Of course, none of these reports were true. Today called "The Great Moon Hoax," it has become one of the most legendary hoaxes in the history of journalism. The Sun never issued a retraction, nor did it ever reveal the true author (today assumed to be Richard A. Locke, a reporter for that newspaper). John Herschel, a real astronomer living at the time, apparently had no prior knowledge about the hoax.

Its major impact, perhaps, was its influence on a young author, who later published his own hoax in the same newspaper years later. That writer, Edgar Allan Poe, had actually published his own moon-related hoax (today known as "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall") only two months before the "Great Moon Hoax" in The Sun — but the impact of that hoax was nil, as it was quickly overshadowed.

*Recommended reading The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York by Matthew Goodman.

Poe: the fury of a demon

From Wikimedia Commons

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream... My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events.

Thus begins "The Black Cat," a short story by Edgar A. Poe, first published in the August 19, 1843 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. The "mere household events" which the narrator then describes are anything but ordinary. The narrator, afflicted with what is today termed alcoholism, becomes violent in his drunkenness. For no significant reason, he vents his rage onto his favorite pet, a black cat named Pluto:

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

After some initial lament for his actions, the narrator is again seized by his "spirit of Perverseness" and kills Pluto by hanging him from a tree. Shortly after, his house catches fire, and he and his wife move to another home. A stray cat mysteriously arrives and joins them. This new cat looks unnervingly like Pluto — equally black but for a small white patch of fur which, to the narrator, looks like a gallows. Of course, this cat is also missing an eye. Tormented by this new cat, another alcohol-fueled rage leads to the narrator's final gruesome act which involves his cat, his wife, and a sharp axe.

"The Black Cat" is one of Poe's most violent tales. But, Poe's shocking tale was purposely extreme and, despite his public dismissal of didactic tales, "The Black Cat" features a moral: don't abuse alcohol. Today, the story is considered a "dark temperance" tale, meant to scare readers away from the evils of drinking. Having recently read Timothy Shay Arthur's temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, I easily see the similar methods in storytelling.

Poe, of course, struggled with his own overuse of alcohol. As such, he vowed to remain sober. A few years after "The Black Cat" was published, he took a stronger step and joined the Sons of Temperance in Richmond, Virginia, making his pledge to avoid alcohol a public one.

A great Poe hoax

A headline in the August 2, 1877 issue of The Dispatch announced the discovery of a "Hitherto Unpublished Poem of the Lamented Edgar Allan Poe." The poem had been discovered inside the fly-leaf of an old book, apparently written as a gift. "After a thorough investigation," the paper noted, it was confirmed as a "genuine production" of Poe's, one never before been seen by the public.

The poem, titled "Leonainie," was dropped off by "an uneducated, illiterate man" who seemingly knew nothing of the value of this discovery. The poem, it was reported, was written in such good handwriting that it resembled a typeface. The editor proudly noted the poem was printed "verbatim," as follows:

Leonainie — angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white:
And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.

In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to meet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
All the forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as joy caressed me —
(Lying joy that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper
In the angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper, —
"Songs are only sung
Here below that they may grieve you —
Tales are told you to deceive you —
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young."

Then God smiled and it was morning,
Matchless and supreme;
Heaven's glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:
Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.

The poem caused quite a stir, and word spread through major cities like New York, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Boston, Chicago, Louisville... The problem? The poem is not by Edgar Allan Poe (though he would likely have enjoyed the ruse).

The whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by James Whitcomb Riley, who used the elaborate scheme to prove that good poems by unknown poets were ignored, whereas mediocre poems by well-known writers were accepted without question. The editor of The Dispatch was Riley's only accomplice.

Poe: To My Mother

Edgar A. Poe outlived several mothers and maternal figures. His birth mother, Eliza Poe, died when the boy was a month and a half shy of his third birthday. Jane Stanard, his first crush as a schoolboy and the mother of his friend Robert, died when he was 15. Poe's foster-mother Frances Allan, who doted on him, died when Poe was 20 (Poe himself missed the funeral because his foster-father didn't tell him in time). Six years later, Poe's paternal grandmother (Elizabeth Cairnes Poe) died an old woman in her 70s.

But Poe himself later denied his connection to these mother figures. Instead, he looked to his mother-in-law, Maria Poe Clemm. "Muddy," as he called her, was the mother of Poe's wife Virginia Clemm (she was also his aunt, making Virginia his first cousin). After the marriage, the trio made a unique family household and stuck by each other through financial hardships and personal tragedies. When Virginia died in 1847, Poe and Muddy remained together in their cottage in The Bronx.

Poe's appreciation for Muddy was expressed in a sonnet published on July 7, 1849 in Boston's Flag of Our Union newspaper.

"To My Mother."

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,
In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
My mother—my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

*The image of Maria Clemm is courtesy of the Edgar Allan Poe Society (http://www.eapoe.org), the absolute best resource for Poe on the internet.

Poe and Longfellow: Favorably known to me

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would have had every reason to dislike Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840s. Poe, the preeminent American critic of his day, spent part of the middle of that decade engaged in a "Longfellow War." Longfellow, by then one of the major American poets, had gained his reputation unfairly, according to Poe, who accused the Portland, Maine-born poet of imitating other poets.

Yet, when Poe became a staff editor of the highly-circulated Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia, he knew that Longfellow would impress his readers. So, he humbly solicited a contribution, well before his major attacks against the poet he later called "a dextrous adapter of the ideas of other people." In his letter, Poe wrote of the "fervent admiration" of Longfellow's genius and suggested that Longfellow was far too important to recognize a little-known critic like Poe. Longfellow's response was dated May 19, 1841:

You are mistaken in supposing that you are not 'favorably known to me.' On the contrary, all that I have read from your pen has inspired me with a high idea of your power; and I think you are destined to stand among the first romance-writers of the country, if such be your aim.

Longfellow never responded publicly to Poe's criticism, even after Poe's death; this is likely because he knew he really was an imitator. He often attributed his ideas or poetic formats to others, a typical practice in romantic poetry. Poe, on the other hand, strove for originality (though he occasionally lifted ideas too). Longfellow's words about Poe, his worst critic, were always kind. In fact, in 1875, he even suggested (apparently from memory!) an epitaph for Poe's planned memorial monument: "The fever called Living is conquered at last."

*The image of Longfellow above dates to 1840 and was painted by Cephas Giovanni Thompson. The original still hangs in his long-time home in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where he was living at the time this letter was written). The image is courtesy of the National Park Service.

Marriage of Edgar Poe

Edgar A. Poe married his first-cousin Virginia Clemm on May 16, 1836. He was 27; she was about three months shy of her 14th birthday. By today's standards, the marriage was a bit odd but, for the time, their relationship was not particularly unusual, though she was slightly young (15 years old was a more common marrying age).

The ceremony took place in Richmond, Virginia, overseen by a Presbyterian minister named Amasa Converse. The venue was the home of Mrs. James Yarrington, Poe's current landlord in a boarding house he stayed with both Virginia and Virginia's mother Maria Clemm (the sister of Poe's father). Mrs. Yarrington helped with the arrangements, even baking the cake. The couple then spend a short honeymoon in Petersburg, Virginia (a local Poe fanatic has taken it upon himself to reclaim the connection and is, quite appropriately, celebrating this coming Wednesday).

Several theories about the Poes still circulate: Maria Clemm may have suggested the pairing and hastened the marriage; the couple may not have consummated their marriage; they may have behaved more like brother and sister than husband and wife (Poe nicknamed her "Sissy"). One theatrical version of the Poes suggests that young Virginia had a sexual fetish for horror stories and sought Poe as a husband (making her the aggressor in the relationship). Friends said they didn't share a bed for at least the first two years of marriage. By all contemporary accounts, Virginia was beautiful and Poe was devoted to her. He once described her as "a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before."

The unfortunate trend in some Poe studies is to assign autobiographical elements to each of his writings, with no room for other interpretations. I disagree and suggest that few if any of Poe's works were inspired by his wife or her later illness (she only lived to be 24). Many friends assumed Virginia was the inspiration for the poem "Annabel Lee," probably written well after her death (and published after Poe's own death in 1849). The connection is certainly tempting and some scholars use the reference to the dead "maiden" in the poem as evidence that Virginia died a virgin.

However, a closer literary tribute is the romantic sketch "Eleonora" (1842), which describes the life of an isolated family of three: a man, his cousin-wife, and his mother-in-law. If Virginia is the inspiration for the title character, this is not a very virginal description of her:

We had drawn the god Eros from that wave; and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for centuries distinguished our race came thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burst out upon the trees, where no flowers had been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened, and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay, glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us; and golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled at length into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of Æolus, sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora.

*The images represent Edgar Poe a few years after marriage (sans mustache) as painted by Samuel Stillman Osgood. The portrait of Virginia Poe is a relatively-new discovery, now privately owned.

Death of Fanny Osgood

Frances Sargent Osgood died of tuberculosis on May 12, 1850 at her home in New York. She suffered from the disease for years, possibly as far back as the mid-1840s when she had a friendship (or possibly a romantic relationship) with Edgar A. Poe.

By the end of her life, Fanny (as she was called) had lost her ability to speak. Her last word, "angel", was written with the intention of being mailed to her husband, the painter Samuel Stillman Osgood (who painted her portrait, right). She was buried in her parents' lot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A year later, a collection of her writings was published by her friends in order to raise money for Osgood's memorial headstone. It was reissued as Laurel Leaves in 1854 with a biographical introduction by the anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who had served as a booster during her early career (Griswold may have had romantic feelings for her). Samuel Osgood took a long time installing her monument, but it was one which he designed himself. The current family marker was inspired by her poem "The Hand That Swept the Sounding Lyre":

The hand that swept the sounding lyre
  With more than mortal skill,
The lightning eye, the heart of fire,
  The fervent lip are still!
No more, in rapture or in woe,
  With melody to thrill,
     Ah, nevermore!

But angel hands shall bring him balm
  For every grief he knew,
And Heaven’s soft harps his soul shall calm
  With music sweet and true,
And teach to him the holy charm
  Of Israfel anew,
     Forevermore!

Love’s silver lyre he played so well
  Lies shattered on his tomb,
But still in air its music-spell
  Floats on through light and gloom;
And in the hearts where soft they fell,
  His words of beauty bloom
     Forevermore!

The metal lyre that topped the family monument at Mount Auburn had five strings representing the family. Four were cut by 1851: Osgood's two surviving daughters died the year after their mother, joining another daughter who died in infancy. Samuel Osgood, the last string on the lyre, died in 1885; his was the last wire cut.

The fever called "Living"

At the end of Edgar Allan Poe's life, the financially-struggling poet was ardently searching for a second wife (his first, Virginia Clemm, died in 1847). Many of the women he pursued were hopeless causes, including Nancy Richmond of Lowell, Massachusetts — a married woman he nicknamed "Annie." The relationship between Poe and Richmond (or, really, Poe and many women) confuses most Poe scholars and biographers; it may have been platonic, it may have been a sibling-like attachment, or it may have been more. Regardless, the relationship inspired one of Poe's greatest poems.

Determined to see her no matter the cost, Poe made Richmond promise that she would visit him, even if he was on his deathbed. A promise secured, he soon went about reaching his death-bed. In an event which may or may not have been a suicide attempt or, perhaps, a desperate act for attention or, perhaps a complete work of fiction, Poe nearly died from the use of laudanum (his only recorded drug use). The experience is believed to have inspired his poem, "For Annie."

Published concurrently in Nathaniel Parker Willis's Home Journal and the Boston-based Flag of Our Union on April 28, 1849, the poem was described by Poe as "the best I have ever written." Here is an edited version of it (full version here):

Thank Heaven! the crisis—
  The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
  Is over at last—
And the fever called "Living"
  Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know
  I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
  As I lie at full length—
But no matter!—I feel
  I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
  Now, in my bed
That any beholder
  Might fancy me dead—
Might start at beholding me,
  Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,
  The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
  With that horrible throbbing
At heart:—ah, that horrible,
  Horrible throbbing!

The sickness—the nausea—
  The pitiless pain—
Have ceased, with the fever
  That maddened my brain—
With the fever called "Living"
  That burned in my brain...

She tenderly kissed me,
  She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
  To sleep on her breast-
Deeply to sleep
  From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
  She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
  To keep me from harm—
To the queen of the angels
  To shield me from harm...

But my heart it is brighter
  Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
  For it sparkles with Annie—
It glows with the light
  Of the love of my Annie—
With the thought of the light
  Of the eyes of my Annie.

Poe died within six months of the poem's publication. After her husband's death, Richmond officially changed her name to "Annie."

Death of Virginia Clemm Poe

It's no secret that Edgar Poe married his 13-year old first-cousin, Virginia Clemm. The pairing was not particularly unusual for the time period, though her age was a little on the young side (tradition aimed for the woman to be closer to age 15 or so). Perhaps, what was unusual was the true love they shared throughout their 10+ years of blissful marriage.

She referred to him as "Eddy" and he often called her "Sissy." They struggled together as Poe did his best to make a living as a writer (at a time when it was nearly impossible to do so) and she faithfully followed him from Baltimore to Virginia to New York to Philadelphia back to New York as he sought work. It was in Philadelphia that Mrs. Poe first displayed symptoms of "consumption," today called tuberculosis. She died five years after that incident, in New York, on January 30, 1847. She was 24 years old (the image included here was created shortly after her death).

Poe was devastated by her death, though he knew it was coming. Rumors today abound that Poe was so despondent after her death, that he turned to drinking and wrote macabre pieces about the death of beautiful women.

In fact, Poe's first macabre work was published before he ever even married Virginia. His treatise exploring his theory that "the death of a beautiful woman" was the "most poetical topic in the world" was written two years before her death as a companion piece to his most famous poem, "The Raven" — Virginia was very much alive and is not the "lost Lenore" in the poem.

Poe's drinking is legendary, particularly after his wife's death. However, as most legends, the stories are based only partly on fact then exaggerated to massive proportions. Many report that he turned to alcohol after the loss of his wife. In fact, it was after Virginia's death that Poe sought help for his drinking problem, culminating in his public vow of sobriety and membership in the Sons of Temperance (an anti-alcohol union) — in other words, after his wife's death, he stopped drinking. Romantically, he had since moved on and found at least two potential second wives.

Ultimately, few of Poe's works are directly related to his wife or her illness. The clearest example of a Poe work "inspired by a true story" is not the fictitious Lenore nor the equally fictitious "Annabel Lee" but the romantic short story "Eleonora" — a relatively obscure sketch written while Virginia was still relatively healthy.

A few hours after her death, Poe had someone make a watercolor image of her; it is pictured on this page. For a time, it was considered the only portrait of Virginia Clemm Poe taken from "life."

The following remarkable poem by Edgar Poe

From the January 29, 1845 issue of the New York Mirror, edited by Nathaniel Parker Willis and George Pope Morris (the editorial introduction below is usually attributed to Willis):

We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the 2d No. of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by EDGAR POE. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of "fugitive poetry" ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent, sustaining of imaginative lift and "pokerishness." It is one of these "dainties bred in a book" which we feed on. It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.

 The poem which followed was likely already in print, published with the pseudonym "Quarles," in the February issue of the American Review. In fact, it was likely from a proof sheet from that issue that Willis took the poem — with permission, of course. The poem he was reprinting — for the first time with the name of Poe — became the work most associated with its author forevermore. It remains one of the greatest American poems ever written.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
         Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had tried to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
         Nameless here for evermore.

Birth of Edgar Poe

Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe became an orphan as an infant when his mother died (his father had already abandoned the family). His older brother was taken in by family in Baltimore. Young Edgar and his younger sister were taken in by two unrelated families in Richmond. Poe was raised by John and Frances Allan, though his legal name was never Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe grew up in a fairly high-class lifestyle, even going to school in England for five years as a boy. When he reached young adulthood, however, his foster-father John Allan (who never adopted the boy) spurned him, calling him ungrateful. Determined to make a living as a writer at a time when it was financially impossible to do so, Poe lived a life of poverty. His greatest works brought him, on average, $10 to $15 each.

Poe's connection to Boston is more than the coincidental place of his birth. His parents were actors who traveled with a mobile acting troupe. Their time in Boston, however, lasted about three years. His mother, Eliza Poe, was an English immigrant who first came to the country as a young child, landing at Boston Harbor in 1796. When his mother died, she presented to young Edgar a miniature portrait of Boston Harbor (no longer extant), with her inscription: "For my little son Edgar, who should ever love Boston, the place of his birth, and where his mother found her best and most sympathetic friends."

When he was cast aside by John Allan, it was to Boston that Poe attempted to make a living on his own. He enlisted in the Army under the false name "Edgar A. Perry" and was first stationed at Fort Independence on Boston's Castle Island. It was in the same city that Poe published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, with the byline "By A Bostonian."Years later, when Poe had achieved fame as a poet (particularly for "The Raven"), he returned to Boston to lecture at the Boston Lyceum - an event which has gone down in history as disastrous. The stage which he lectured from was, in fact, the same Boston stage where Eliza Poe had her last performance in Boston.

Poe was known for his quarrels with Boston-area writers like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and (sometimes) Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Russell Lowell. He particularly disagreed with the reform mentality of the group of writers he called "Frogpondians" (after the Frog Pond on Boston Common), who often wrote didactic works. Poe's relationship to Boston and Boston-area writers is explored in-depth in "The Raven in the Frog Pond," an exhibit at the Boston Public Library, through March 31, 2010.

Prohibition, temperance, and T. S. Arthur

On this day, January 16, in 1919, the 18th Amendment took effect in the United States — establishing 13 years of prohibition of the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol. In honor of this "Noble Experiment," it's worth looking into some of the literary figures who believed in the sober lifestyle back in the 19th century.

Early in his career, editor/anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold advocated for a temperate lifestyle in the 1830s. Years later, he would come to enjoy vintage wines. Poet/abolitionist James Russell Lowell was a teetotaler for a (short) time after his marriage, likely due to the influence of his wife Maria White. His anti-alcohol stance was so strong for a time that his neighbor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow worried that Lowell would force him to destroy his wine cellar. Lowell, however, was infamous for his drinking while an undergraduate at Harvard and, perhaps, sneaking a few drinks when his wife wasn't looking.

Edgar A. Poe struggled to control what would now be called alcoholism throughout his short life. Aware of his problem, he went as long as 18 months without drinking at one point before finally looking for help. In 1849, he took a vow of sobriety and became a card-carrying member of the Sons of Temperance. Thirteen years before Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman published a book called Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate (1842) — a temperance novel. The poet later called the book "a damned rot" and said he was actually drunk when he wrote it.

Perhaps the most important anti-alcohol writer was Timothy Shay Arthur, the New York author of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There (1854). The story is told by an infrequent visitor to a new tavern in Cedarville named Sickle and Sheaf, founded by Simon Slade. Over his ten visits, the narrator witnesses the downfall of the tavern owner, his guests, and the town in general — all because of alcohol.

According to the publisher's preface:

"Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" gives a series of sharply drawn sketches of scenes, some of them touching in the extreme, and some dark and terrible. Step by step the author traces the downward course of the tempting vender and his infatuated victims, until both are involved in hopeless ruin. The book is marred by no exaggerations, but exhibits the actualities of bar-room life, and the consequences flowing therefrom, with a severe simplicity, and adherence to truth.

Halfway through the novel, Slade the tavern-keeper is described by a character: "He does not add to the general wealth. He produces nothing. He takes money from his customers, but gives them no article of value in return —nothing that can be called property, personal or real." The book's chapter titles include "Some of the Consequences of Tavern-Keeping," "More Consequences," "Sowing the Wind" and (wait for it) "Reaping the Whirlwind." Alcohol leads to neglect, domestic abuse, gambling, and even murder. According to the book, not only is the tavern-keeper ruined, but also the entire town. "Does the reader need a word of comment on this fearful consummation?" the author asks at the end of one chapter. "No: and we will offer none."

During Prohibition (which lasted from 1920 to 1933), a feature film of Arthur's book was released, directed by William O'Connor (his other films were mostly Westerns), based on a 19th-century stage version adapted by William H. Pratt. Cheers!

*The image above is the bar room in question, from an early edition of Arthur's book.

Poe publishes his first horror story

Edgar A. Poe started his literary career with an obscure self-published book of poems in July 1827. A second book of poems two years later offered him little success either. By his third book of poems in 1831, Poe must have felt despondent, still struggling to make any kind of mark in the literary world. So Poe did something that changed his fate: He started writing prose.

It's likely that Poe would have died forgotten if he hadn't begun experimenting with the short story genre. His first, "Metzengerstein," was published in the January 14, 1832 issue of the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. Poe would soon become known predominantly as a horror tale writer and, to some, the first to perfect the short story as a legitimate literary form.

"Metzengerstein" follows the story of two feuding noble families. The young Frederick, the Baron of Metzengerstein, has just inherited the family fortune after the death of his father. His rival patriarch dies shortly after in a stable fire which also kills many horses; young Frederick is suspected of arson. Soon, a mysterious horse arrives that looks like it belongs to the rival family, though it is unrecognized. Despite its ferocity (it is described as "demonlike"), Frederick takes a liking to the horse and attempts to break it in. The horse, however, turns out to be the instrument of Frederick's eternal punishment.

Encased in a European Gothic tradition, "Metzengerstein" is not only Poe's first published short story, but also his first horror tale. It remains, however, distinctly unlike most of his later horror works. For one, it is vaguely moralistic (the man who "out-Heroded Herod" is punished for his wickedness) but, more importantly, it lacks the psychological depth that mark works like "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," and "The Fall of the House of Usher," which also features a Gothic castle setting. It does, however, introduce us to the theme of life after death, which Poe will continue to explore throughout his career.

Poe then turned to comedy writings; it would be two years before he wrote another horror story ("The Assignation" in 1834 followed by "Berenice" in 1835). He would continue writing humorous works throughout his career, such that the number of his comedies outweighs the number of horror tales.

*The above illustration for "Metzengerstein" is by Byam Shaw, published in 1909. It depicts the final climactic scene in the tale.