October 12, 2009

Poe’s Woes, Revisited

Share: posted by Sara Haji at 02:39 PM

As part of year-long festivities marking the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, the writer received a true funeral on Sunday. Poe is credited with inventing dark, detective fiction, but the man led a hapless existence until his death on October 7, 1849. He was 40 years old when he died and was seen wandering the streets of Baltimore, muttering unintelligibly. Despite Poe's fame at the time, he was said to occasionally write magazine editors for $10 here and there to purchase train fare. His cousin, Neilson Poe, neglected to tell anyone of his death, and only 10 people attended his three-minute funeral. 

Once a proper funeral ceremony was decided upon, several U.S. cities engaged in the battle to claim ownership of the author. Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, New York and Boston all wanted Poe for their own, but Baltimore's claim--"We have the body!"--seems to have been most compelling.

The cities buried the proverbial hatchet, along with a life-sized recreation of Poe's body, yesterday morning in Baltimore.

You can read Poe's original obituary, wedged between other eerie bits of news, here.

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