The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial

Poe Readings: A Dream

2009-08-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

The second in the series of Poe readings. Also find a link to the notes / commentary below:

Poe Readings: Summer and Winter

2009-08-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've decided that, besides providing notes and commentary for Poe's stories, I'm going to do readings of them. How many I'll do, I have no idea, but here's a start. And I have another recorded that I'll post later.

Notes / Commentary

Movie about Poe's death

2009-08-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, plans to make an historical thriller about the death of Poe. The script is written by Hanna Shakespeare.

A short biography of Edgar Allan Poe

2009-08-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

There are few writers who have been the object of as many dubious assertions as Edgar Allan The bard of Avon may arouse more curiosity and rancor in arguments over whether he was the son of a butcher or a noble, a Catholic or an atheist, a Tory or a Whig. But while the dearth of facts about Shakespeare limits the scope of plausible controversy, Poe left many letters, essays and acquaintances to give an account. And such was the character of the man, and of the temptations held out by the theatricality of his work to those who were left to explain it, that the ground of the biographer is thoroughly pitted with traps into which he may fall through sympathy, antipathy or carelessness.

But some facts are not widely disputed. Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, the middle of three children, to David and Eliza Poe. Eliza Poe was an English immigrant and traveling actress; David Poe, an actor from Baltimore. David Poe left his family and, on December 8, 1811, Eliza Poe died in Richmond, Virginia. Notices had already been published in newspapers of Eliza Poe’s illness and destitution and it was known when her children were orphaned. Henry, the eldest, and Rosalie, the youngest, were taken in by relations. One week after his mother’s death, Edgar Poe was taken in by the Allans.

John Allan was a merchant of Scottish extraction. His wife Francis Allan was a hypochondriac woman who evidently delighted in Edgar and was probably responsible for taking him in. Poe would always remain a foster child of the Allans; he was never legally adopted and Allan was never Poe’s legal name. However, Poe was baptized within two weeks of his arrival at the Allans under the name Edgar Allan Poe, so it can be said that the traditional formation is not without ground.

Poe was given a good education. He was tutored at the age of five. A year later, he went with the Allans to England where John Allan had business to conduct. He was educated there in a school run by women of the name Dubourg, a name that later reappears in the story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and would seem, when taken together with Poe’s other fictive reiterations from his biography and reading, to signify his good intention that nothing should ever go to waste. Still in England, he then attended Manor House School, run by a Dr. Bransby, whose name reappears in the story “William Wilson” in the description of a school supposed to be loosely based on Manor House. He returned with his family to Richmond when he was 11 years old and continued his education there at several schools.

He was an active, athletic, well-liked child. At an early age, he was set to perform recitals for guests, being stood on a table in lieu of an appropriately-sized dais. When he was 15, he performed the notable feat of swimming six miles against the James River while his schoolmaster followed in a boat. So there is little or nothing to suggest that he was, for most of his youth, noticeably introverted or moody—except the earliest fragment of his poetry, written the same year he swam the James:

Last night, with many cares & toils oppres‘d,
Weary, I laid me on a couch to rest—

They are lines indistinguishable in basic character from the opening of “The Raven,” and may be supposed the effect of reading Byron who, together with Walter Scott, was enormously popular in America and must have appealed even more piquantly to a lively and attentive adolescent.

Shortly after Poe turned 16, John Allan inherited a considerable sum from his uncle and the family was soon shifted to a new and more distinguished house, dubbed Moldavia. But Poe did not live there long before he was sent to Charlottesville to study at the University of Virginia.

The brainchild of Thomas Jefferson, the school was the epitome of neoclassicism. The rotunda presided over a wide and lengthy expanse of lawn which was flanked by the residences of the students. (Cabell Hall, which now faces the rotunda opposite the lawn, was not then standing.) The library was generous but not very free of lending, so that it was commonly necessary for a student to take down all his notes in the library itself and, at that, within strictly confined hours. It is possible that this circumstance influenced his later habit of wholesale installation of factual details from whatever references came to hand. It is not known that he ever possessed any substantial library and the only accounts now remembered describe his library as modest.

UVA was a highly unsettled place at that time. In fact, it was still under construction at the time of Poe’s arrival. There were drinking, fights and riots. An idea of conditions there may be gathered from Poe’s letters home to John Allan:

You have heard no doubt of the disturbances in College—Soon after you left here the Grand Jury met and put the Students in a terrible fright—so much so that the lectures were unattended—and those whose names were upon the Sheriff’s list—travelled off into the woods & mountains—taking their beds & provisions along with them—there were about 50 on the list—so you may suppose the College was very well thinn’d . . . Some were reprimanded—some suspended—and one expelled . . . There have been several fights since you were here—One between Turner Dixon, and Blow from Norfolk excited more interest than any I have seen—for a common fight is so trifling an occurrence that no notice is taken of it—Blow got much the advantage in the scuffle—but Dixon posted him in very indecent terms—upon which the whole Norfolk party rose in arms—& nothing was talked of for a week, but Dixon’s charge, & Blow’s explanation—every pillar in the University was white with scratched paper—Dixon made a physical attack upon Arthur Smith one of Blow’s Norfolk friends—and a “very fine fellow”—he struck him with a large stone on one side of his head—whereupon Smith drew a pistol (which are all the fashion here) and had it not miss d’ fire, would have put an end to the controversy. . . .

Four months later, Poe wrote again, with news to the effect that the school had not substantially changed:

We have had a great many fights up here lately—The faculty expelled Wickliffe last night for general bad conduct—but more especially for biting one of the student’s arms with whom he was fighting—I saw the whole affair—it took place before my door—Wickliffe was much the strongest but not content with that—after getting the other completely in his power, he began to bite—I saw the arm afterwards—and it was really a serious matter—It was bitten from the shoulder to the elbow—and it is likely that pieces of flesh as large as my hand will be obliged to be cut out—He is from Kentucky—the same one that was in suspension when you were up here some time ago—Give my love to Ma and Miss Nancy. . . .

What passed between this letter, of September 1826, and March of 1827 is not entirely clear. The general opinion is that Poe was sent to university with insufficient funds to cover his tuition, books and board, and that he attempted to cover the shortfall by gambling at cards. However it may have been, he accumulated debts of $2,000, returned to Richmond in December 1826 and on March 18th had a serious argument with John Allan over the debts. How serious it was may perhaps be judged from the letter Poe wrote the following day:

Again, I have heard you say (when you little thought I was listening and therefore must have said it in earnest) that you had no affection for me—
You have moreover ordered me to quit your house, and are continually upbraiding me with eating the bread of Idleness, when you yourself were the only person to remedy the evil by placing me to some business—

You take delight in exposing me before those whom you think likely to advance my interest in this world—

You suffer me to be subjected to the whims & caprice, not only of your white family, but the complete authority of the blacks—these grievances I could not submit to; and I am gone[.]

Notwithstanding these lines, Poe must have thought that Allan could have been softened by a sense of guilt or responsibility, because he closed the letter with a request for money:

. . . as I am in the greatest necessity—If you fail to comply with my request—I tremble for the consequence.

Leaving Virginia, Poe did two things. He traveled to Boston where he published his first work, Tamerlane and Other Poems. It was self-published and saw small circulation but signaled his determination to be a writer. Then, no doubt from want of money, he enlisted in the Army and later that year arrived at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island in Charleston, South Carolina. In keeping with the economy of memory and fictional image (repeated with respect to UVA’s nearby Ragged Mountains in a story of the same name), the island reappears in the story “The Gold Bug.”

Over the next two years, Poe was promoted to Sergeant-Major. But back in Richmond, Francis Allan was dying. He obtained leave and arrived the day after her burial in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. Six weeks later, he obtained the substitute necessary for release from his Army enlistment and applied for officer training at West Point. During the interval between the two, he went to Baltimore and published his second volume of poetry Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems.

To narrate Poe’s career from here out is to describe an almost unceasing movement between places and employments—between editorships of magazines and cities, from Baltimore to Philadelphia to New York. Less than a year after entering West Point, he decided that he wanted to leave and managed to get kicked out by refusing to attend classes or church services. Then he went to New York and there published his Poems, while during the same year he published his first five short stories in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier.

Of these, only “Metzengerstein” gives an intimation of the works by which he is best remembered. A Byronic tale of decadence and the supernatural, it foreshadows several distinctive traits. Like "The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Metzengerstein” gives the reader a character heir to an ancient estate. And as in "The Fall of the House Usher," the scion ends a long and mysterious struggle with his dissolution and the dissolution of his house:

One instant, and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds—another, and, clearing at a single plunge the gate-way and the moat, the steed bounded far up the tottering staircases of the palace, and, with its rider, disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

The other four pieces were humorous and satirical, a fact not to be overlooked since this was a strain of his writing that would always endure and give a certain curious brightness of color to his horror stories. It is also worth noting that these five stories were submitted for a story contest and that, although they were published, they did not win.

Poe was now 22 years old. He had tasted life at University and in the military. He had already lived, if only for short times, on two continents and in several cities of America; he had self-published his poetry three times without finding success. His natural parents were dead along with his foster mother, and his foster father had little use for him. So he was beginning his independent life in irregularity and uncertainty.

It was perhaps the stress of this uncertainty that led him to take refuge in the house of Maria Clemm, where he lived with her, his grandmother, his brother Henry Poe, and Maria Clemm’s children Henry and Virginia. It was a poor house and Poe wrote letters, many of them ignored, asking money of John Allan. At the same time, he unsuccessfully sought work as an editor or teacher. He wrote, of course, producing among others his best early story, “Ms. Found in a Bottle,” which won a 50 dollar prize in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter.

During these years, John Allan died. It was said that Poe made one last visit to see Allan before the end and that his foster father threatened him with a cane from his deathbed. But there is no doubt that Poe was disinherited while portions of the wealthy estate were left to Allan’s illegitimate children.

In August, 1835, Poe went to Richmond to seek an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger, published by T.W. White. While he was there, he received a letter from Maria Clemm asking his advice: His cousin, Neilson Poe, was offering to provide for Virginia—which would separate her from Poe. This was unpleasant news to him and his reply of August 29 read in part:

I am blinded with tears while writing this letter—I have no wish to live another hour. Amid sorrow, and the deepest anxiety your letter reached—and you well know how little I am able to bear up under the pressure of grief. My bitterest enemy would pity me could he now read my heart. My last my last my only hold on life is cruelly torn away—I have no desire to live and will not. But let my duty be done. I love, you know I love Virginia passionately devotedly. I cannot express in words the fervent devotion I feel towards my dear little cousin—my own darling. But what can [I] say? Oh think for me for I am incapable of thinking. Al[l of my] thoughts are occupied with the supposition that both you & she will prefer to go with N. [Neilson] Poe. I do sincerely believe that your comforts will for the present be secured—I cannot speak as regards your peace—your happiness. You have both tender hearts—and you will always have the reflection that my agony is more than I can bear—that you have driven me to the grave—for love like mine can never be gotten over. It is useless to disguise the truth that when Virginia goes with N. P. that I shall never behold her again—that is absolutely sure. Pity me, my dear Aunty, pity me. I have no one now to fly to. I am among strangers, and my wretchedness is more than I can bear. It is useless to expect advice from me—what can I say? . . .

I had procured a sweet little house in a retired situation on Church Hill—newly done up and with a large garden and [ever]y convenience—at only $5 month. I have been dreaming every day & night since of the rapture I should feel in [havin]g my only friends—all I love on Earth with me there, [and] the pride I would take in making you both comfor[table] & in calling her my wife. But the dream is over [Oh G]od have mercy on me. What have I to live for? Among strangers with not one soul to love me.
. . .

For Virginia,
My love, my own sweetest Sissy, my darling little wifey, think well before you break the heart of your Cousin, Eddy.
I open this letter to enclose the 5$—I have just received another letter from you announcing the rect. of mine. My heart bleeds for you. Dearest Aunty consider my happiness while you are thinking about your own. I am saving all I can. The only money I have yet spent is 50 cts for washing—I have 2.25 left. I will shortly send you more. . . .

Virginia did not go with Neilson Poe, and in May of the next year she and Edgar were married.

The family (gradually reduced to the trio of Edgar, Maria and Virginia) continued to move and Poe continued to change editorial positions and schemes for success. He also continued to write. Over the next seven years, he wrote many of his best stories—“Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “William Wilson,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Descent into the Maelström,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

In January 1847, Virginia died. In her absence, he evidently felt a great lack and a need to replace her presence with that of a new wife. He courted several women, traveling back and forth across the country between Sarah Helen Whitman, Elmira Royster and Annie Richmond. In a poem, he wrote “Helen, my Helen” and in a letter he wrote, “Annie, my Annie.” It is not easy to be sure whether he was confused, hypocritical or insane.

But he was determ

ined to get married to someone and was still trying to arrange the affair in his last days. Of these, there are several confused accounts. He left Richmond in late September—and Arthur Hobson Quinn gives the 27th as probable. Nothing else is known with certainty but that on October 3rd Dr. Joseph Walker of Baltimore wrote the following letter to Poe’s acquaintance Dr. J.E. Snodgrass:

Dear Sir,—

There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan’s 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acuainted with you, and I assure you, he is need of immediate assistance.

Four days later, Poe was dead. The cause remains matter for speculation and the accounts of his last days in the hospital are nearly as confused, contradictory and unreliable as his travels immediately preceding them.

His life and death alike are fruitful fields for speculation. But all we have of Poe with any certainty is his work. The words attributed to him after his death were not altogether his own but manipulations of Poe’s executor, Rufus Griswold. There are those who suggest that even the body that lies in Poe’s grave is not his but another’s put in by mistake or to cover the theft of the true one. There is nothing that needs to be said of these things. The work survives and gives its own account.

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Ms. Found in a Bottle (1833)

2009-08-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

This may be the first great short story Poe wrote. Submitted to a short story contest in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter, it was unanimously awared the prize of $50.

In it, he introduced the imagery of the whirlpool into his fiction--an image that would be repeated in "Descent into the Maelstrom" and implied in his only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Explanation about a few items mentioned in the story may be helpful.

Pyrrhonism means extreme skepticism.

Malabar teak means teak taken from Malabar in southern India. The teak is probably Tectona grandis.

Coir, jaggeree, ghee—Coir is a coarse fiber taken from coconut shells. Jaggeree, or Jaggery, is an unrefined sugar, made either from sugarcane or the sap of the date palm tree. Ghee is a kind of clarified butter.

Crank means “incapable of carrying sail without being exposed to the danger of oversetting.” [Captain Cook Society]

The black rock mentioned in the editorial postscript refers to The Rupes Nigra. See Wikipedia, Map House of London, Strange Maps.

The epigraph, Qui n’a plus qu’un moment a vivre N’a plus rien a dissimuler, means He who will die has no reason to lie.

Read the story here: http://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/msfndg.htm

H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast

2009-08-16T19:21:00.001-07:00

I've been listening to a series of podcast discussions of Lovecraft's stories at the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. These shows feature readings of excerpts from each story under discussion and well as chat about various Lovecraft-related matters. The hosts, Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer, are gradually working their way through HPL's ouvre from the earliest stories to the later ones.

You can hear the podcast at this site: http://blog.hppodcraft.com/

A Dream within a Dream

2009-05-24T07:25:00.001-07:00

Nightmare 100

2009-04-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Horror challenges you to the contest of your dreams

Chill us with your real-life nightmare in 1000 words or less by the end of May.
Click here for details.

Horace Binney Wallace

2009-03-05T20:15:00.000-08:00

Once again, many apologies for the lack of updates lately. I have several pieces of news and several news stories that I mean to pass on shortly.

For now, I'd just like to point out a short article about a person of interest in Poe's life. Namely, the author of Stanley, Horace Binney Wallace.

The Valley of Unrest

2009-03-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

A new .pdf copy of George Douglass Sherley's Valley of Unrest has been posted at the Southern Literary Messenger. This odd little book was reprinted in the August issue, but this version might make easier reading and/or more convenient printing.

Poe on Tennyson

2009-02-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

(Crossposted from the Tennyson Bicentennial blog)

For Tennyson, as for a man imbued with the richest and rarest poetic impulses, we have an admiration — a reverence unbounded. His "Morte D'Arthur," his "Locksley Hall," his "Sleeping Beauty," his "Lady of Shalott," his "Lotos Eaters," his "Ænone," and many other poems, are not surpassed, in all that gives to Poetry its distinctive value, by the compositions of any one living or dead.
—from Graham's Magazine, August 1843 [quote taken from here]

The pronunciation of Ligeia

2009-02-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

Here, for the curious, is a discussion speculating on the pronunciation of the name Ligeia: http://users.boardnation.com/~poeforum/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=57;start=0 I myself (knowing that others pronounced it differently and that I was probably wrong) have always pronounced it LIEZ-yuh. (I leave the proper phonetic representation of my error to those who know.)

The prize in the discussion goes to the rejoinder in this exchange:

PHILLYPOE: Poe rhymes Ligeia with "idea" in Al Aaraaf:

Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,

so we at least know the pronunciation of the last two
syllables.

TRON1977: Well I'm from NY so I guess Ligeia rhymes with deer.

Tennyson on Poe

2009-02-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

Crossposted from the Tennyson Bicentennial blog.

An excerpt--

Tennyson: There is one spot in your country which I should like to visit--a spot, which as your poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck, finely expressed it, is hallowed ground, a pilgrim shrine, a mecca of the mind.

Interviewer: You mean Mount Vernon, where Washington is entombed?

Tennyson: No; I mean a long-neglected spot in the provincial town of Baltimore, where the greatest American genius lies buried. I mean the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.

--from "A Visit To Tennyson", The New York Times, February 13, 1886

Tennyson

2009-02-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Lord Tennyson were born in the same year and so share this year as their bicentennial. That being the case (and with apologies to visitors for not posting here lately), I have made some slight effort to acknowledge the accomplishments of the latter in a blog not dissimilar to this one. You can find it here: http://tennyson200.blogspot.com/

I should point out that Tennyson and Poe, although they never met, were among the uncommon cases of great writers and contemporaries who respected one another's work. And someone who wanted to understand something of the sensibility and technique of Poe's verse could do far worse than study the works of his English counterpart.

Correction to the list of Poe bicentennial events

2009-01-15T15:31:00.001-08:00

"The Edgar Allan Poe Bicentennial" at Westminster Hall has been cancelled. In its place is an event called "Honor by Horror," which is scheduled for Monday, January 19, 2009 form 7:00pm - 9:00pm and features a screening of "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1961, starring Vincent Price) and a live theatrical performance of "The Black Cat" (by actor Tony Tsendeas). The event is free, but tickets are required. Read the flyer for more information.

The list of Poe Bicentennial events has been updated to reflect this.

The Poe Stamp

2009-01-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

According to About.com, the stamp is due out January 16.

Review of Ellen Datlow's Poe

2009-01-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

Book Review: Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow at Blogcritics Magazine

Rarely-Seen Poe Family Bible to be on Display in Richmond, VA

2009-01-03T11:07:00.000-08:00

Received via email press release:

In honor of Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday, the Library of Virginia, in partnership with Richmond, VA's Poe Museum, is preparing an exhibition on Poe's life and works. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be the Poe Family Bible, a rarely-seen artifact in the Poe Museum's collections. The exhibition will open July 18, 2009.

The Poe Family Bible includes genealogical information such as birth and death dates of Poe family members and notes on marriages, with the earliest family information entry dating to 1725. The handwritten notes also include a sketch of the Poe family burial plot at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground.

The Bible is currently undergoing restoration at Cat Tail Run Hand Bookbinding in Winchester, VA. EMC Corporation, the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions, is funding the restoration and digitization of the Bible through its Information Heritage Initiative, which preserves, protects, and makes cultural treasures globally accessible in digital form. The digital images and the Bible itself will be on display from July through December 2009 at the Library of Virginia.

The exhibit is part of Poe Revealed 1809-2009, a cooperative effort among Virginia historical sites, museums, libraries and performing arts organizations to commemorate the life and works of Poe throughout 2009. A schedule of Poe-related events as well as information for educators, students, Poe enthusiasts and visitors is available on the Poe Bicentennial Web site http://www.poe200th.com/.

Throughout 2009, Richmond, Virginia will host numerous events in honor of the Poe Bicentennial. During his adulthood, Poe spent time in Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore, but it was Richmond, Virginia that Poe considered home; the place where he grew up, married and first gained a national literary reputation.

You can learn more by visiting www.poemuseum.org and www.Poe200th.com.

Poe news roundup

2009-01-02T10:31:00.001-08:00

The Friends of Poe newsletter for Fall 2008 is online. (Okay, I'm late posting this, but better late than never)

For those whose browsers have the right character set and can read Japanese, PoeJapan.com is online.

An email from Richard Mazda at The Secret Theatre in New York informs me that a performance of "The Tell-Tale Heart" is being (or has been) filmed and set for release early this year. You can find more information at http://www.secretfilmco.com/Videos_3.html

There are new articles online:

"Investigate the World of Edgar Allan Poe" at U.S. News & World Report

Also, there's a discussion of Usher at My Life in Books.

And if that isn't enough, you can attend Sundays with Poe at Radiotheatre in New York.

Poe bicentennial celebration in New York

2009-01-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

Jan. 18, 1 p.m. — Birthday celebration with Tristan Laurence performing as Poe at the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, 2640 Grand Concourse, Bronx.
The Bronx County Historical Society page for the Poe Fordham cottage

The Raven Returns to Boston

2008-12-31T11:49:00.000-08:00

At Boston College, Devlin Hall 101:

Thursday, January 15, 2009
7:30-9:00 p.m.
Speakers:
Matthew Pearl, author of The Poe Shadow and The Dante Club

Scott Peeples, author of The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Allan Poe Revisited

The program will also feature the exhibition and performance of creative work by BC students, the reading of Poe passages, gifts for students, and an appropriately shaped birthday cake. Student contest entry form

Friday, January 16, 2009
7:30 p.m.
The Last Days of the Raven
A screening of the new indie film, followed by a Q&A session with
Brent Fidler, its co-director, screenwriter and star.

In the January 1809 issue of the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, published within days of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, the editors lamented the state of American literature, characterizing it as "coarse, insipid fare" and noting the absence of hard-working writers. Over the next forty years, no one did more than Poe to add spice to what could be written and imagined. And yet for two centuries Boston has largely ignored its connection to Poe, even though he was born here—not in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or Transylvania—on January 19, 1809. It's time to seize this once-in-a-century opportunity to celebrate Boston's most influential writer. Time for Mayor Thomas M. Menino to declare January 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Month in Boston; for the city to make sure that its commemorative plaque is hanging in the right place; to put a statue of Poe on the Commons and add at least one raven to those swan boats! At BC we intend to start a wave of Poe appreciation and have heaps of fun in the process!
http://bc.edu/schools/cas/english/poe2009.html

John Henry Ingram

2008-12-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

Interest in the life and work of Edgar Poe was part of Ingram's childhood; in his adulthood it became his obsession. By his statement, he spent sixty-two years writing about Poe and collecting Poe materials. We can be sure he spent as many as fifty- three, for he published a poem called "Hope: An Allegory," written in imitation of Poe's "Ulalume," in 1863, and in the month before he died he published a tart note, setting the record straight about Dr. Bransby's school at Stoke Newington. He filled the intervening years with almost ceaseless attention to Poe: he wrote two biographies, several Memoirs, more than fifty magazine articles, as well as Prefaces and Introductions to writings on Poe by others, and he published and republished Poe's tales, poems, and essays in eight separate editions. During these years he carried on bitter warfare in print with almost every person who wrote about Poe anywhere, especially if the writer was an American, for John Ingram secretly regarded himself as the sole redeemer of Poe's besmirched personal reputation and as the person most responsible for Poe's renewed, world-wide literary reputation.
"John Henry Ingram: Editor, Biographer, and Collector of Poe Materials" by John Carl Miller at the University of Virginia Library

The J.H. Ingram Collection at UVA
Works by Ingram at The Online Books Page

Poe Square in Boston

2008-12-17T17:27:00.000-08:00

Today's City Weekly in the Boston Globe has a front page article on the lack of respect Edgar Allan Poe receives in his hometown of Boston. Bostonians obviously thought enough of Poe to name a square after him, near his birthplace--the 1928 map above shows the location.
--Read more at The City Record and Boston News-Letter

The "Ludwig" obituary and Rufus Griswold

2008-12-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

Two days after Poe's death, an obituary in the New-York Daily Tribune under the name of Ludwig. It was written by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Poe's literary executor. It was later expanded upon in Griswold's Works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Tribune obituary reads in part:

He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villainy, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer’s novel of “The Caxtons.” “Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy — his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere — had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudice against him. Irascible, envious — bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed — not shine, not serve — succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self conceit.”

It's hard to know what's more impressive, Griswold's eagerness to vilify Poe in the wake of his death or his reliance on another writer's words in doing so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Wilmot_Griswold
http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poegrisw.htm

Baltimore's other Poe bicentennial site

2008-12-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

In addition to visiting http://www.nevermore2009.com/, you can also learn about Baltimore Poe bicentennial events by visiting http://poebicentennial.com/.