Add Comment (0)
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW EDGAR ALLAN POE?
Many of us take no small measure of pride in the fact that Edgar Allan Poe lived and wrote in Baltimore for a time. But when faced with cocktail party conversation on the subject, how many of us can offer up Poe facts that fascinate?
We asked Jeffrey Savoye, founder of the Edgar Allan Poe Society, to share a few fun tidbits about Poe’s writing life and his Baltimore experience. Wannabe Poe-Heads take note:
• Though Poe was born in Boston, he began his literary career in Baltimore—and when asked the city of his birth, he often claimed Baltimore, instead. Go, Ravens.
• Poe was a versatile writer of poetry, stories, and smart satire. He originally intended to be solely a poet. In 1827, Poe’s brother William Henry Leonard Poe published a story titled “The Pirate” in the Baltimore North American. Edgar was likely inspired by Henry’s success to try his own hand at stories. And the rest is literary history.
• It was not Baltimore’s dark spirit that inspired Poe to write horror. Frightening tales were in major commercial demand in the nineteenth century, and Poe wanted to publish and sell fiction. “Poe wanted to shock readers,” Sayoye says. “He wanted to attract reader attention.” By 1833 the writer had completed a number of tales intended as parodies of the over-the-top-scary Blackwood’s Magazine style. Poe couldn’t find a publisher for the group, but began submitting single stories, which were read as straight horror fiction, albeit with real writerly flair. Thus, a new style and new artist were born.
• In a sense, he worked from life. “Poe was always reading newspaper accounts and stories, and his work was frequently inspired by such reading,” Savoye says. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” for example, is based in part on a trial that Daniel Webster described.
• Poe died on October 7, 1849, at age 40. Much speculation surrounds his untimely passing—Was it rabies, severe alcoholism, “congestion of the brain,” heart failure? His body was moved to the Rotunda at Washington College Hospital (now Church Hospital) where many city residents were eager to collect a lock of his hair.
As a result of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, many important Poe-related sites are no longer in existence. True Poe fans should be aware that several key spots do remain:
• Baltimore Poe House and Museum, 203 Amity Street (410) 396-7932
• Poe’s Grave at Fayette and Greene streets
• Church Hospital 100 North Broadway
• Sir Moses Ezekiel Statue of Poe at Maryland
and Mount Royal avenues
• The John H.B. Latrobe House 11 East Mulberry Street
(though not open to the public)