During his lifetime, one of the great concerns of Edgar Poe was what to do with the body. He stuffed them up chimneys. He bricked them up in the basement and in the catacombs. He hid them under the floor boards. He threw them in the river. He burned them in flaming houses and castles. He fed them to cannibals. He carted them about in oblong boxes. He sunk them in whirlpools. He hid them in secret crypts. He hypnotized them until they oozed. Unfortunately, he died intestate without giving clear instructions as to what we should do with his own body

During this bicentennial year of Poe’s birth, the issue has been raised that perhaps Poe should be moved to Philadelphia, a city where he enjoyed great success, or to Boston, the city of his birth where he published his first book and entered military service. We have a great tradition in the South of ignoring problems until they go away. Psychologists call this practice “denial,” but we call it good breeding. Unfortunately, once the problem is out in the open, we must deal with it, and the great Poe debate has opened this grave issue. Opening a grave, of course, can be a rather grisly business. In Poe’s stories, the opened coffin usually revealed someone still alive. I fear, however, that we are too late for Poe. I feel confident that he is dead.

Instead of proposing to remove Poe’s body to Richmond, the Poe Museum has petitioned the Queen to grant him a small plaque in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. The Dean of Westminster, who investigates such matters, reminded us that Westminster Abbey is a place of Christian worship and wanted to be sure Poe would feel comfortable there. The question of where Poe’s body should lie involves the question of where he would feel most comfortable.

During the bicentennial year, three gentlemen have made the case that Poe would feel most comfortable in their respective cities. Jeff Jerome made the case for Baltimore where Poe published his first short stories, where he died, and where his body has remained these 160 years. Edward Pettit made the case for Philadelphia where Poe had great success as an editor and where he created the mystery story. Paul Lewis argued for Boston where Poe was born, where he published his first book, and where he joined the army. Each man made a splendid case and demonstrated Poe’s strong relationship to their cities. Yet, the “great Poe debate” of 2009 did not include other places that might have a claim.

Charlottesville, Virginia is home to Mr. Jefferson’s university where Poe delighted in his studies and enjoyed an exemplary academic record. Poe loved the mountains around Charlottesville, as did Mr. Jefferson, and he set his short story, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” around Charlottesville. The university has always defended Poe and has dedicated his room as a continuing memorial to their greatest student.

Charleston, South Carolina was home to Poe for a year while he served in the army. Here he walked the beaches of Sullivan’s Island and became acquainted with the rich variety of shells that made his introductory text on shells possible. Here he heard the local lore of pirates and buried treasure that would form the basis for “The Gold Bug” which he set on Sullivan’s Island. He set two other stories in Charleston and came to know the wild, romantic landscape of tarns and avenues that would ornament other tales. He formed a lifelong friendship in Charleston with Colonel William Drayton to whom he dedicated Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. He certainly felt comfortable in lovely Charleston.

Fortress Monroe at Point Comfort, Virginia also served as home for Poe during his military career. It was at Fortress Monroe that Poe learned of the death of his foster mother Frances Allen.

The United States Military Academy at West Point provided Poe with a home after Mrs. Allan died. He had an exemplary record at the Academy and learned a great deal about science and mathematics that made his proposal of the Big Bang theory in Eureka possible. After arranging a Court Marshall for Poe over minor infractions so that he could leave army life and devote himself to poetry, the Superintendent allowed Poe to continue living in the barracks until he settled on where to go. Finally, the cadets of West Point subscribed the necessary funds to allow Poe to publish his second book of poetry which he dedicated to them. Surely he would feel comfortable at West Point.

On three occasions Poe lived in New York. He continued to return there simply because it had the greatest opportunities for a writer to make his fortune. In New York he published “The Raven” and gained international fame. In New York he had his bitterest controversies and his deepest sorrow as his beloved Virginia died. In New York he conceived and published Eureka, the book he considered his most important work, for in it he concluded that the universe had a beginning from a primordial speck, and that the universe has a cause which we must call God.

For five years in his childhood, Poe lived in London, the capital of the world’s greatest empire, glorious in its recent defeat of Napoleon. While there he travelled the romantic island into Scotland and saw the ancient castles and fabled country houses of the great. In London he would have learned of the ravens of the Tower of London that never depart. Poe’s mother was born in London and his grandmother had appeared on the stage of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. Perhaps most important, the British have done Poe the compliment of embracing his creation – the mystery story – which has provided so many writers and actors a livelihood.

Even far off St. Petersburg, Russia may file a claim on Poe’s affections, for in 1845 in a biographical note for James Russell Lowell, Poe stated that he had spent time in St. Petersburg during the period when he was actually stationed in Charleston.

Finally we must not forget Richmond were Poe’s mother lies buried, where he spent almost half his life, where he began his professional career as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, where he was married, and where he returned in the last year of his life to become engaged to his childhood sweetheart. From here he departed to bring Maria Clemm back to Richmond for his wedding and his new home.

Many places have a claim to Edgar Poe, and he felt comfortable in many places. We have discovered in his bicentennial year that the whole world lays claim to Edgar Poe as major conferences, special events and exhibitions have been staged in over a dozen cities in the United States and in countries as far flung as Russia, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, England, and Brazil. He has been honored by commemorative stamps in the United States, Monaco, San Marino, Hungary, and St. Thomas. I have felt so sorry for Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, because 2009 was their bicentennial year as well. They barely got passing notice while Poe has continued to occupy the pages of the newspapers and magazines of the world and the TV, radio, and internet for week after week throughout the year. It’s almost embarrassing. The only thing more embarrassing is that the academic establishment of the United States continues the tradition of Poe’s literary enemies by dismissing him as unimportant.

While each city can make a strong case for claiming Poe’s corpse, other factors must be taken into consideration before we can think of moving Poe’s body again. After all, he was buried once in 1849. Then he was re-buried in 1875. Then he had two more funerals in October 2009. Four funerals and a wedding is a lot for any man. You have to see it from the family’s perspective. Do we love one child more than another simply because they made good grades in school? Do we love Edgar more than any other member of the family simply because he is America’s greatest poet, the creator of the mystery story, and the innovator of science fiction who almost single-handedly established literary criticism as a legitimate endeavor in the United States? No. We must be fair.

As it stands, no one on the family advisory committee has been buried even once. Poor Cousin Willie lies beneath the soil of Chickamauga Battlefield when he ought to be home in Pendleton. My great-great-grandfather, Edgar’s cousin William, has been misplaced by the cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama where he was sent for safe keeping during the yellow fever epidemic of 1856. No. Talk of another burial for Edgar would be premature until we have sorted out the other bodies and everyone else has had a chance to be moved at least once. Besides, it is an expensive business to move a corpse from one city to another, and no end of red tape with municipal authorities. We’re not sure that it is worth dealing with the Interstate Commerce Commission over transporting a dead body across a state line. And if we moved Edgar, we would have to move Virginia and Maria as well. The more the bodies pile up, the greater the cost.

In creating the mystery story and so many of his other stories, Poe was interested to explore the great mystery of the justice that lies behind the universe animating us to cry out for justice. No one would understand more than Edgar Poe that in the spirit of fairness, the family simply cannot agree to move the body just yet. Not until the rest of us have had our turn. Besides, burials have much more to do with death than with birth, and this year has been the bicentennial of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. The conclusion of the family is that the whole issue deserves more consideration, and that the family should take it up again in 2049 during the bicentennial of the death of Poe. I therefore deputize my daughters Rebecca Poe Hays and Mary Ellen Poe to begin hearing evidence and to keep track of the family bodies so that they will be in a position to convene the family for our next scheduled reunion in 2049. Edgar and I shall observe with interest from our vantage point.

In the meantime, many people connected with the Poe Museum will be disappointed in the family’s noble objectivity that has left the Enchanted Garden without what would have been a unique relic to add to our collection. After all, several collections have locks of Poe’s hair, but no museum has any of his bones. As a consolation prize, therefore, my cousin George Poe, my sister Katie Poe Thomason, and I want to present the museum with something a bit more attractive than Poe’s skull. In 1899 the University of Virginia commissioned a magnificent bronze bust from the great sculptor Zolnay to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Poe’s death. That grand monument sits in the reading room of the university library in Charlottesville just across the street from Poe’s room. But Zolnay cast more than the one bust, and today we present to the Poe Museum the sibling of the University of Virginia bust in honor of our fathers, Frank Swift Poe and William Nelson Poe.

Behold the Zolnay bust of Poe!

Fall 2009 Newsletter »

Edgar Poe Tries to Get His Act Together L

(1849)

Mr. Poe sits in Mrs. Shelton’s parlor, freshly
purchased hat on freshly creased knees,
the place smelling somehow, he’s decided,
like a chemist’s cupel. The sullen weight
of the room’s horsehair and mahogan
gathers in his eyes.

Why

would his hands and feet be cold
in the heart of a Richmond summer?

He almost told the girl a sassafras full of seraphim
detained him till the hour was nearly gone.
(He planned to smile, then, charmingly.)
The old flame he hopes will warm him
wouldn’t have heard of the crazed crudities
of William Blake—but she knows Poe’s
never seen angels, though he’s always
given dead women every chance to shine.

How dark can a parlor be? he’s thinking,
knowing this gloom is all the rage,
yearning with shame for the bright lamps
of the Temperance meeting, crust
of bread, gouge of greasy cheese, anything
to ease the hot pinch in the pit of his stomach.
Maybe she’ll tell the girl to bring some tea.

Words

cluster thick as flies at the edge
of a blinding plain of salt.

That nagging out in the street: boys
arguing about their dogs and the fishing
in the James. Not one of them may live to Advent.
But they’ve got youth’s good odds written
all over them in wholesome dirt, no doubt,
and Poe, as clean in person as he’s been
in a fortnight, feels eternity pooling
in his shiny boots black as the ink he’s been
unable to scrape from beneath those longish nails.
He curls his fingers under the Panama’s brim,
into the O he thinks of vaguely, not without
humor, as a mouth that wants to swallow
his brain.

He looks to the shadowy archway
where she’ll appear soon. She’s not herself
anymore, the cool paleness he lost forever,
not sweet Annie, not one of those airy creatures
he’s always had in mind, spirits floating
in his mother’s fragrance of orris root, is, in fact,
a thickening widow, one who sees, he believes,
in that desperate look he’s had to face
in the hotel’s cloudy mirrors the beguiling pain
she found in his younger eyes. He’ll settle,
he’s convinced himself, for a firm, flush soul,
shrewd, yes, but kind.

Shadow men

and their cumbered mules

drag words

he’ll never make out

taller and taller across the whiteness

toward a bloated sun.

(c) J. Ronald Smith

First Published in the Poe Messenger

As Richmond celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the Poe Museum, St John’s Church, Segway of Richmond, and the historic Linden Row Inn invite you to experience history through the eyes of Edgar Allan Poe. From January 16, 2009 and running through December 31, 2009, we are offering a special travel package that includes two nights’ stay in one of the Linden Row Inn’s Main House rooms (rate includes valet parking, continental breakfast, wireless internet, in-town shuttle, and fitness center access), two passes to a special Edgar Allan Poe-themed Segway Tour of Downtown Richmond, two passes to the Poe Museum, two passes to tour St John’s Church (where Poe’s mother is buried), and an Edgar Allan Poe Tote Bag with Poe Memorabilia. The package is priced at $369 plus tax for two nights (double occupancy). Visit the link below for more details or to make a reservation:

http://reservations.ihotelier.com/crs/p_prod.cfm?ProdID=182763&HotelID=10073&killcookie=1&LanguageID=1

2 AM: Victorian Séance
Make contact with Poe through an authentic Victorian séance. Maybe Mr. Poe will make an appearance.

11 AM: Segway Tour of Richmond Poe Sites
See the sights of Poe’s Richmond without walking up all the hills. Ride a segway. Lessons will be provided before the tour.

1 PM: Birthday Cake
Every birthday needs a cake. We have served Poe portrait cakes and raven cakes at previous Poe birthdays, so come find out which kind of cake Poe will get this year.

1 PM: Book Signing of Edgar Allan Poe in Richmond
This new photo book will be released on January 19, so be among the first to get a copy. The authors, Keshia A. Case and Christopher Semtner, will be on hand to sign copies and answer questions.

2 PM: Segway Tour of Richmond Poe Sites
If you want to take the segway tour of Poe’s Richmond but are not a morning person, take the afternoon tour.

3 PM: Book Signing of Edgar Allan Poe
An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Poe’s cousin Dr. Harry Lee Poe.
Dr. Poe is a descendant of Poe’s uncle and, through his family, has gained a special insight into the life of his famous relative. Here is your chance to meet Dr. Poe and learn things about Edgar Poe that only a relative would know.

7 PM: Candlelight Walking Tour Poe’s Church Hill followed by Warm-up Cocktail Hour
Take a trip back in time and see Poe’s stories and poems brought to life in a whole new way–in the darkened streets and cemeteries that inspired them. The tour begins at Poe’s mother’s grave with a performance by Haunts of Richmond. Then you will follow in the footsteps of Poe through the shadowy streets of 19th century Church Hill, and you will visit the sites that inspired his greatest poems while you hear dramatic recitations of those works. The tour ends at the Poe Museum’s Enchanted Garden with another performance. There is an extra charge of $15 for this experience, but all participants will be treated to refreshments at the conclusion.

All Day: Temporary Exhibit: Poe: Face to Face: Early Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe
See Poe as you’ve never seen him before–through the eyes of his contemporaries. This exhibit will bring together some of the earliest portraits of the author photographed, painted, or owned by the people who knew Poe best. Find out which of Poe’s portraits were owned by his last fiancée, Elmira Shelton. Learn which portrait Poe’s sister considered the best and which one Poe himself hated the most.

We’ll see you in January!  It just so happens that January 16th is the Friday before a three-day weekend so it is a great opportunity to visit Richmond, see a wealth of Poe sites, and get your collectable Poe stamp at the same time. Don’t forget there is a Garrison Keillor and Symphony performance that same week, along with the 24 hours of activity at the Poe Museum on January 19th, the actual birthday.

Check back often. We are always adding new details about events as they become available. If you want to receive email updates when the calendar is updated you can sign up for those on the home page of www.poe200th.com.

The lesson to be learned by all those unlucky enough miss out on this event is that the Poe Museum doesn’t cancel an event until the place is underwater. Our next event will be a Poe Memorial Service to be held at the Museum on October 5, so we encourage you to come no matter how terrible to weather is.

Since this website was posted, we have already received some good theories, some of which are posted below.

I think that he took a drug over dose when he was sick.I think that because in the story it said that he became sick.He was also an alcoholic, so he probably took the medicine while he was drinking the alcohol. So it probably caused the brain tumor, which caused him to die.
~Allie Thomas, Maryland

I think he did an drug overdose or he was poisoned by someone.                                  ~Christopher Dailey and Richard Royal, Maryland

I believe he died because he could of possiably catched an airbourne disease coming and going from Richmond! Or possiably from a broken heart because his wife Virginia know as Ginny died of sickness. He really loved her and any person could die because a loved one has passed away.  The stress of being without out her may hurt way to much for him to bear and he just gave up, got sick and just passed away!
~Abbey, Florida

He died from a brain tumor and epilepsy because he had no treatment for either.
~Nicole, Florida

The first floor of the exhibit contains an overview of Poe in the comics. This section shows how not only Poe’s stories but also Poe, himself, have appeared in comics from the 1940s until today. The area devoted to Poe as a comic character gives the viewer a new perspective on the idea of Poe as a pop culture icon. Here you will encounter Poe joining forces with Batman and helping “the world’s smallest super hero” the Atom fight crime. An original drawing by Rick Geary for his book The Mystery of Mary Rogers details the real Poe’s attempt to solve an actual murder mystery, proving that Poe didn’t need Batman’s help to battle the forces of evil. (Come to the Poe Museum’s Summer 2009 exhibit “Ratiocination” to learn more about how Poe tried to solve some real-life mysteries.)

One case in this room is devoted to Poe parodies. Among these are a Simpsons version of “The Cask of Amontillado” and a story entitled “The Tell-Tale Fart.”

A favorite with many of visitors is Gris Grimly’s watercolor cover art for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness. Grimly uses subtle washes of watercolor with delicate pen-and-ink details to create a twisted world that reminds one of a cross between a Tim Burton film and an Egon Schiele drawing.

In addition to the exhibit, the Poe Museum has published a catalog, The Incredible Mr. Poe, which includes a history of Poe in the comics by Dr. M. Thomas Inge, the collector who loaned many of the pieces in the show, as well as chronology of most of Poe’s comic appearances from the 1940s until 2007.

Poe shares his bicentennial with Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln and it is always interesting for me, especially since I am trained as an anthropologist, to consider that these three minds were all a product of the same era, granting them similar world views and cultural understandings of an age. When Larry Gard and I were brainstorming ideas the other day he thought that a conversation between Poe and Darwin would be an interesting one. I do too, but I’m glad Larry will be the one to write this theatrical excursion because it will be such an intense research process.

I still have more work to do–many more entries to load into the events calendar on this website. Despite my procrastination you can already see an interesting mix of performances and exhibits that will explore Poe during his bicentennial year. For now I think I am most eager to see the commemmorative stamp that will be issued by the U.S. Postal Service. Its design is still a secret but I have heard from people in the know that it is an extraordinarily beautiful image. It should be unveiled in just a short time, as soon as the USPS announces their 2009 commemmorative series. I am also curious to see (or rather hear) the Richmond Symphony’s performances dedicated to Edgar, and the amazing exhibit planned by the Library of Virginia.

I hope many people will join us to celebrate Edgar A. Poe’s influences and success in 2009.

Poe Museum

Richmond, Virginia