Guest Post: Headed For The 'Poe' House

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Richmond VA

So on January 16, 2017 Tom and I finally achieved our long planned, and several times aborted mission to visit the Edgar Allan Poe museum in Richmond, VA.  We were suitably rewarded for our efforts.  The museum is a tiny gem tucked within Richmond's sprawl, and is the only house from 1712 left standing after the Civil War and the fire that burned Virginia's capitol to the ground.  It is a house that Edgar Allan Poe would have passed by in his day.  He never lived in the house, but it certainly evokes the time period, especially on a chilly, February day.

In the Enchanted Garden

Edgar Allan Poe is one of those rare figures in history whose life is more fascinating than what he left behind.  While he invented the science fiction genre, and gave birth to detective fiction, his life was one huge spiral of destitution, misery and misfortune.  He may have been on a life long search for stability, which never came.

Orphaned at two, taken in but never formally adopted by the Allans, young Edgar's life reads like a continuous series of unfortunate events.  Though a brilliant student, he never had any money for books, and quarreled constantly with his adoptive father.  Edgar finally quit the University of Virginia and enrolled in West Point.  In two years, he rose from private to Master Sergeant, but then, because of financial difficulties, made the decision to get expelled!  His early efforts at earning a living as a writer were undermined by a publisher who never distributed the fifty copies of Poe's first book, Tamerlane.  From there, his life is one continuous roller coaster of brief happiness and abject misery.

 

Armed with what we know today about various mental illnesses, Tom and I could not help but speculate on just what was going on in Edgar's head through his brief life.  Genius certainly, but genius tainted with depression, possibly bi-polar, possibly effects of lead poisoning, considering that lead was in glass, and water.  In the end, the mystery of Poe's mental state and his death in Baltimore will remain conjecture.  The last few days that he spent in Baltimore make for a mystery worthy of the genius that he was. 

The visit to the Poe museum is certainly worth a trip.  Not only for Poe fans, but for anyone interested in history.  The museum has changing displays, and of course, hosts Edgar Allan Poe himself in October!  There is  friendly rivalry between the Poe museum in Richmond and that in Baltimore, where Poe lived and spent his final days.  

 

If you do visit the Poe house in Richmond, do be mindful of Pluto and Edgar, the two four legged keepers of the house.  They will come and investigate. 

One of the Museum's feline managers requires attention

For those interested, there is a film that depicts Edgar Allan Poe's final days in Baltimore.  'The Raven' came out in 2012, and stars John Cusak as Poe.  It is very well done, but only really makes sense if one knows Poe's history and stories.  Certainly some liberties were taken, but overall, the film is as good an explanation of the poet's final days as any other assumptions or theories relating to his demise.

Lucilla M. Epps

Newport News, Va