After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Macabre Death of Edgar Allen Poe

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Edgar Allen Poe was a poster boy for the macabre whose work thrilled readers throughout America and beyond. How did he end up in a gutter in Baltimore, delirious, and wearing clothes that were not his own? Maddy Pelling takes Anthony Delaney through the mysterious death of a mysterious man.Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tomos Delargy. Produced by Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code AFTERDARKYou can take part in our listener survey here.After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

October 3rd, 1849, Baltimore. It's a cold, wet day, and underfoot, the first of the season's dead leaves have already turned to mulch beneath the boots of the city's inhabitants. We're on East Lombard Street, flanked on either side by tall brick-fronted flat-faced buildings straining against the constant rain that slicks the cobbles and glides down the windows of passing carriages. And yet, despite the darkening skies, the streets are busier than usual this afternoon. It's Sheriff's Election Day, and those who have a vote are turning out to use it. Ahead of us is Gunners Hall, currently in use as Cornelius Ryan's fourth ward polls.

Watch a while as men come and go casting their votes before turning their coats upwards at the neck and braving the weather again. Of course, for those with no democratic rights to exercise, it's a day like any other. Certainly, the boys selling papers on the corner, the crossing sweep shoveling mess from the horses, the girl hovering by a warm grate, her hands shielding a steaming pie like treasure, do not notice anything out of the ordinary. At least, nothing election related.

While in warm parlours up and down the city, the talk is all of politics and the future, out here on the street a different drama is, for the eagle-eyed, unfolding in real time. Having just cast his own vote, Joseph Walker, printer of the Baltimore Sun and no stranger to a good story, is heading home when he notices a shape moving in the gutter. Evening is some way off yet, but already the autumn light is dying and Walker leans in to take a better look. It's a man. He's fallen, perhaps. Is he drunk? He's staggering, on his hands and knees now, looking around wildly, swinging his arm to feel for the wall behind him. Walker catches a glimpse of his face. Beneath dark shaggy curls, even darker eyes,

sunken, sallow cheeks, and a thin mouth twisted in distress. The clothes draped on this pitiable figure are filthy and tattered. Mud and horse muck cake the legs of his trousers and the coat. The coat is shredded, with pockets ripped open to the wind, and as empty as they are unsightly. The wearer lunges at Walker as though to grab hold of him. He's whispering something now, though the words don't quite come out. He's angry. No, not angry. Terrified. Is there someone I can fetch for you, Walker ventures, in as polite a tone as he can muster? Snodgrass. Comes the reply, as the figure sinks to the

ground, the effort of speaking too much for him. Who? Snodgrass. Doctor. And you? Sir, who are you? Poe. Edgar. Edgar A. Poe. Oh, I'm excited for this one. Hello and welcome back to After Dark. My name is Anthony. And

I'm Maddie. And today we are looking at a mystery and some dark history. This is perfect after dark material and actually one of my favorites. I kind of love Edgar Allan Poe. I have such a soft spot for him. I'm not really sure why. But before we continue, I want to just reference, get it out of the way because in my head constantly during this episode, the Eurovision Song Contest song that I've just played for Maddie before this episode of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe, Poe, Poe, Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po Po daughter and struggling for his life, it seems. So we're in 1849 in Britain, obviously, we're in the early years of the Victorian era. In

Ireland, the Great Famine is happening. And if you don't know about that, go back and listen to our three-parter that we did on that. In London, the first Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibition is taking place at the Royal Academy. And Karl Marx has just arrived in the city. Now in America, which is of course where this is taking place in Baltimore, there's real change happening and there's some fascinating societal shifts, political shifts going on. So in May, these are just some of the events, in May of that year, 1849, there's the Astor Place riot in Manhattan. Now this is where 30 rioters are killed and

120 are injured. So this is a huge event. And it's basically a clash between immigrants and the so-called nativists, the people who feel they are Americans and are resentful of the people coming in. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever changes. And, you know, look at the riots that have just happened in Britain. It doesn't feel all that different. In California, we're at the riots that have just happened in Britain. It doesn't feel all that different In California, we're at the start of the gold rush in which eventually 300,000 people approximately are going to travel from all over the US and from overseas to go there Yeah, and we should do an episode on the gold rush in fact

So there's that going on there's that moment everyone's being drawn to that place This idea that you can make your fortune from the land if you're brave enough to do it. In Maryland, we've also got Harriet Tubman who escapes from being enslaved. She frees herself and she goes on to free other people and what becomes known, of course, as the Underground Railroad. So many people I love at this time, like Tubman, Edgar Allan Poe. It's a great, well, it's not a great time necessarily, but it's a really interesting time. There's some really interesting people. It feels a really fiery time. There's lots of change and there's lots of people fighting

back and resisting and a lot of people still doing the oppressing, to be honest. It's not a time you would want to go back to, but it's huge change going on. So that's the context. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Edgar Allan Poe. I think he's got a fascinating life not an unproblematic one at times. So he's a consular. Nobody's little face. I know. I mean he's distinctive looking. I'm gonna make you describe him in just a second. So for anyone who doesn't know he is a writer, he's a critic, he's born in 1809 in Boston to David and Elizabeth Poe. I didn't know this, both itinerant actors.

Oh, I didn't know that either. That explains a bit, doesn't it? Yeah, well, it doesn't. So David actually abandons the family the next year, so he doesn't really know his father. And then his mother, Elizabeth, dies in 1811. So only, just doing some math, two years. That was complicated math there. Two years into Edgar's

life. But that theatricality kind of running through his veins, that comes through in his own work. Totally. Yeah. And his works are nothing if not completely theatrical and, you know, bordering on the slightly ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then he's fostered by a family called the Allens, John and Francis of Virginia and- Wait, sorry. What were his parents? What was his parents? biological parents?

So David and Elizabeth Poe. Poe and now we're with the Allans. And now he's with the Allans. So John and Francis in Virginia. John deals in the slave trade. Oh, wow. So yeah, that's where his money comes from. Interestingly, now again, I didn't know this about Poe. With the Allans, he actually comes to Britain. I didn't know that. He spent a lot of his childhood in Britain. He goes to boarding school in Scotland, in London. Stop it. I didn't know this.

I didn't know this. And this is in the early years of the 19th century. This is the height of romanticism in Britain. We've got Byron, it's Blake. You've got all these incredible, really Gothic people working, producing stuff. And it's in that environment that Poe is being educated. And so I think, again, you can see these influences coming in. He goes back to America and he eventually goes to the University of Virginia, but he leaves after a year, he runs out of money. He falls out with John Allen, the foster father, and makes this break. And arguments, falling out with

people, estrangements, it's going to be a pattern in Harry's life, right? Like this is not the only time. I feel like I would love him though. I have a soft spot for him. Yeah, no same. I don't hang out with him though, but I do have a soft spot for him. And you would fall out with him at some point, like 100%. Yeah. But he'd be a chaos person today. Oh, totally. So by 1827, he's dropped out of university and he begins a career in the army. So he enlists first of all. That seems unlikely. Yeah, it really does, doesn't it? So he enlists first as a private and then as a cadet at West Point, which is the officer training, one of the many, I think, at the time officer training

establishments. But he's not great. It's't surprise. I was not surprised, Maddie. He neglects his duty. He gets in trouble for being disobedient. He's eventually court-martialed, which is incredibly serious, and he is discharged from the army. So not a great success, but it is during this time that he publishes his first collection of poetry. So he's beginning on the path that he is obviously meant to be on. The army, not so much for him. Poetry, yes. So he then makes this kind of official break with his father at this point. Like obviously John Allen's lost patience with this guy who's dropped out of university,

has been kicked out of the army. He's not a great foster son slash prospective heir, I suppose. You know, he's not living up to 19th century ideals. So he goes off and he decides, I'm going to make a life myself as a writer. Now, the first half of the 19th century, making a career, making a living as a writer is quite hard to do and Poe is really one of the first people who actually makes his money solely from doing this. This is one of the reasons he fascinates me, you know. Yeah, so many other writers at this time are working in other jobs or are women who cannot

go and get a job and have to be married, have to live in the house of their father or an aunt or whatever it is. You know, think of Jane Austen, for example, living at the expense of her brother for most of her life. But Poe is like, I'm going to make this a thing. I'm going to make it work for me. Like, it's like he had some kind of commercial acumen around writing specifically. Absolutely. So he starts writing poetry, he starts writing short stories, but he also works the critic. He is a brutal critic. He made enemies. Yeah.

He made enemies. Again, not surprised. All of this is fitting into the image I have in my head. And as well think about, you know, this is in a few years, we're going to get Dickens doing his performances, reading things out and there's a sort of new profile for what a writer can be emerging and Poe is, as you say, is kind of commercial acumen. He's like, where is this going next? How can I fit into this? I think it's really accurate as well to start bringing Poe and Dickens into the same breath,

not just because of the gothicism that's in both of their writing, but because of that commercial idea of what a writer could be. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's interesting as well thinking about his parents being itinerant actors that in order to be successful as a writer, you didn't just write one book and everyone in America would read it. Literary circles were very regional at this time. He was constantly moving around. You would be able to maybe publish something

in a newspaper in one city and no one would have read it in New York. So you'd have to go there next and publish something else there and smooth with all the literati there. And then you'd have to go to Baltimore or wherever it was and you'd have to keep constantly moving. So he's traveling a lot. In 1836, when he's 27, he's on this

journey to be a writer. He marries his first cousin, Virginia Clem. Now, not unusual by 19th century standards, of course, but she was at the time 13 years old. And actually, in the context of this time, that's late to be marrying a teenager. That had started to peter out in the middle of the 18th century. It was frowned upon even then. So that's unusual. And I will say that there is a question mark over whether or not this marriage was consummated at this time. They tend not to be when they're properly supervised.

I mean, that's my hope, right? Often they live separately as well for a long time. Yeah. And also there's a suggestion that Poe wanted to be the heir of his aunt. I see. And you know, get it back in with the biological family. So it may have been strategic. I am not excusing it. No, no, no. But there are caveats around this. And actually, I will say as a side note, look up Virginia Clem. She's absolutely fascinating. And there are incredible portraits of her that spy. There's a beautiful drawing of her, which is just so beautiful. I'm obsessed with it and it would make a great tattoo. But anyway, I digress. In the years that follow, he's got this marriage, he's on this path to be

a writer and he publishes The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven, which makes him famous. The Telltale Heart, that's one of my favorites. That one scares me. Yeah. That is, I mean, that has like MR James tints about it as well. I mean, MR James is later, but you know, just gorgeous. Love his work. And there's a lot in there, I think, about dark secrets, people being buried alive,

things being put away and hidden and then resurfacing. And I think we get that in Poe's own life as well. So there's a real kind of gothic crossover between his literature and his life. The other thing that I will say about him, and I love this, is Poe was terrified of being buried alive, like a lot of people in the 19th century. And he writes a lot about people being buried alive in his short stories. And the other thing that he was kind of interested in as well was the deep south of America and this kind of the haunting horror, was the deep south of America and this kind of the haunting horror I suppose of slavery, I mean thinking back to Harriet Tubb being

someone who's very much active in this moment, that I think his writing speaks to the anxieties of the time, not just of his own life and he was obviously a deeply anxious, troubled gothic person in his own right, but he is very much plugged into the shifts that are taking place. So he's a fascinating sort of touch paper for America in this moment in 1849. I want to now make you describe the photo that we've got of him. There are so many photos of him that exist, which are incredible for early photography and things. I mean, it's a really early photography. Yeah, really early. And really, I don't know if this, the one that we're looking at has

been retouched in any way to make it clearer, but really clear. I mean, this is somewhat, you feel like he is in front of you. Okay, let me describe him. Here he is with his little face that I keep. So he has quite the large forehead and his hair is somewhat receding. Nonetheless, it's also quite tousled and a little bit curly still. You can see here it looks to be kind of brown, black. Obviously this is black and white photos so you can't tell for sure, but I'm going to imagine it's on the blacker side of brown. Then he has very close together eyes. His eyebrows are very close to his eyes, so it's giving a very intense look and he's

looking directly at the viewer in this. His mouth is a little skewed to as I'm looking at it to the right. And it's as if it's not a sneer, but it's as if it's a little bit like he's going, I couldn't be arsed with this. I'm slightly better than this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he's dressed in black with a white shirt, looks like black velvet, but that could just be something of the picture and of what we know about him. Oh, mind you, there's plenty of velvet going around in the 19th century. But he is a striking figure. You will look at this and instantly know it's Edgar Allan Poe. And if you don't know who Poe is, you'll look at this and go, who is that I need to know about him? He's

beguiling. He is. He's so compelling. Yeah, yeah, No, he really is. He's fascinating. Has such fascinating appearance. This photo that we're looking at is known as the Annie image of him because it was given to one of his friends, Mrs. Annie Richmond. It was probably taken in June 1849, so just four months before his mysterious death as well. And I think you can see something of the haunted life that he's lived in his eyes. And without placing too much hindsight on it, I do think that you can read something of, you know, he's coming to the end of his life. He doesn't look well, particularly. He doesn't. I've just read that he's 40 in this picture and he looks a lot older than 40.

Yeah, even by 19th century. Yeah, even by 19th century. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. In case you haven't heard, in the US it's a presidential election year. We're going to hear a lot of, this is America. No, no, you're all wrong. This is America. But on American History Hit, we're leaving that to the rest of them.

Join me, Don Wildman, twice a week, where we look to the past to understand the United States of today with the help of some amazing guests. Let us introduce you to the founding fathers, guide you through the West Wing of the White House and shelter you on the battlefields of years gone by to find out just how we got here. American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit. So we then come to the question of his mysterious death. Yes. Why is he in Baltimore at this time?

So a week before he's found on the street outside Gunnars Hall on this election day, he leaves Richmond in Virginia for Philadelphia. He's traveling to Philadelphia for work. There's nothing unusual in this, as we said, he travels around to do readings, to write, to work as a critic, all of that. Now, at this stage in his life, his wife has died, the 13 year old that he married so early on, I think she dies of TB. And he's looking to remarry and his plan, according to the letters that he writes

to the people he talks to before he sets out on this journey, is to go, when he gets to Philadelphia, he's gonna go on to New York and he's gonna grab his aunt, so the mother of his previous wife, and he's gonna to grab his aunt, so the mother of his previous wife, and he's going to take her back to Virginia for the impending nuptials. He's got someone in mind to remarry. So he has stuff to look forward to. He's nowhere near Baltimore and yet he's found on the street in Baltimore a few days after setting off on this journey, and nobody really knows why.

And this is where this mystery comes in, and of course he dies in mysterious circumstances, like he couldn't just slip away in the night. Anyway, tell me what happens next. For three days after Poe was discovered by Walker in the gutter on East Lombard Street, he moved in and out of consciousness, never fully aware of his surroundings and all the time slipping further into a kind of irretrievable darkness. Walker, proving himself an adequate newspaperman, had located the Dr. Snodgrass Poe had asked for and together the men delivered their strange patient to the local hospital. There they watched as Poo was gripped by visions, screaming between fits of delirium, and all

the time calling out, RANNELS, a name no one could make any sense of at all. It was strange, his watchers thought, as they picked through the clothes he'd been wearing, which, on closer inspection, appeared not to be his at all. Finally, on the fourth day, the light began to leave Poe's eyes, and the blood drained from his already pale face. He fell still and silent and slipped quietly away. News of his death and the strange circumstances surrounding it soon spread. Just days later, an obituary ran in the New York Tribune penned by an anonymous author who signed themselves only as Ludwig.

Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this country. He had readers in England and in several states of continental Europe. But he had few or no friends. And the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic, stars.

Okay, this is fittingly grim and amazing at the same time. Just so many details and like, it's not his clothes, it's what's going on. So there are so many different theories about what's happened to him up to this point and how he dies. So I just to prepare myself, do we know an actual answer or are we left with multiple possibilities? Nobody knows. Undelighted. Go.

It's a genuine mystery. It's an open-ended question. So nobody really knows exactly what Are we left with multiple possibilities? Nobody knows. And delighted. Go. It's a genuine mystery. It's an open-ended question. So nobody really knows exactly what he died of, like what actually was happening medically speaking in and out of consciousness. He's shouting this name Reynolds, but nobody gets to the bottom of who is Reynolds. We don't know. We still don't know who Reynolds is.

He's not wearing his own clothes, which is a bit weird. And especially, you know, in this moment in the 19th century, Poe's not hugely wealthy. Clothes that people owned were so important to them, were expensive. They were prized possessions, really. You gifted your clothes, you inherited clothes, you repaired your clothes. You're not just going to be wearing someone else's clothes randomly. It's not like if we just swap shirts or something. Like it's not. I like your shirt. Yeah, I like yours. We totally could. Black and white. Oh my god. Sorry, we'll get an off topic. So there are so many different theories. Let's get into some of them and I just want your reactions

to them. What do you think? Inspector Delaney, what's the truth? So, the first theory is that he had been beaten or attacked in the street. I can see this. I can see that that might be a thing. Yeah. I mean, he's in the gutter. He's in a messy state. It doesn't necessarily explain the clothes though, right? Unless the person who'd attacked him, I suppose, had beaten him up and then swapped outfits with him. But then, is he bleeding? Does he have bruising? Like, there would be some, surely there'd be marks on the body. And he lives for another four days after they find him. So that would

be enough time for bruising and marks to present themselves. Yeah. I mean, he's definitely a physical mess. And I'm guessing there was bruising on him, but he's been rolling around in the vector. So who knows? The other theory, one of the others, is that he was in extreme alcohol withdrawal and possibly other substance withdrawal. So we know that he drank heavily for a good portion of his life and that he was taking laudanum and other substances as well. Again, not unusual for the time, but he definitely had issues around that. And I wonder if that maybe explains how he'd got to Baltimore. Has he lost his way? Is he struggling?

We don't know why he's in Baltimore. Yeah. But then if things got so bad for him, wouldn't he have reached for a drink to say that? Yeah, like if that was the... Listen, I'm no expert on addiction, but I don't know. I mean, certainly, he doesn't feel to be mentally coherent at this point. Yeah. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't really know.

He manages to ask for the doctor whose name he does know. How does he know? He has a personal connection to him. He knows this guy and he knows he lives in Baltimore. Is he in Baltimore to see this man? Yeah. We don't know. Or is it just that in that moment, you know, he can think enough to name a doctor he knows

in this place. Yeah. Intriguing. Okay. Someone who he knows will help him. So there's that. There are other theories that he's maybe been poisoned something like carbon monoxide that during his travels he stayed somewhere where that's happened or that someone's purposely

tried to hurt him or that it's an accidental thing where he's now wandering the street in extreme physical distress, the root of which we don't know. Has he been murdered? Has he been targeted and attacked with a view to kill him, not to rob him, but to kill him? Is he the purposeful... It still doesn't explain the clothes. It still doesn't explain the clothes. Or why he's in Baltimore.

There are other theories that say he had some kind of disease, everything from a brain tumor, which I suppose might make sense in terms of him going in and out of consciousness, not really knowing what's going on, saying names of people who aren't there, syphilis potentially. That level of mental distress is a much later stage and there's usually physical symptoms, particularly on the face, right? Thinking about the medical wax anatomical masks that you get of people with their noses gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he doesn't seem to have any of that. There's a theory that says he might have had rabies. Oh, wow. Which seems intent. But I mean, if anyone's going to have it, it'll be okay. That's exactly why I laughed. Classic. Yeah, yeah.

Ravies, jeez. Then there's a really interesting theory called co-oping. Now this was something that was going on in America and don't forget in Baltimore, it's an election day. Oh yeah. That seems key, right? This was where gangs working for particular candidates would literally co-op people from the street, make them dress up as someone else and go and vote pretending to be that person. So it's basically election fraud. And to me, that seems very likely that he's been caught up in this. He

has someone else's clothes on. He's outside Gunners Hall, which is one of the polling stations on an election day. People are coming and going, but it still doesn't explain why he's in Baltimore. But to me, that just seems like the most... I think I agree with you though. Yeah. I mean, but something, it's that and, it's yes to that and, there's something else going on.

But it also seems kind of mundane, if that's the answer. That actually, the way that he dies is sort of nothing to do with his life. And that's so often the way. Although, this kind of peripatetic thing of traveling around, not really having any friends, as we heard in that second narrative, and this kind of loneliness does add up to the way in which he dies on the side of, well, it leads to his death, but he's found on the side of the road in a place he nobody knows why he's there. Loneliness is the key word there, isn't it? To pose like generally and you see that in

his writing, you see there's always lone figures, there's always a sense of being haunted, but of sort of craving company from the living and the dead and not really getting it. And I think, yeah. Something else is going on. If it is, if co-op thing is part of this and it sounds to me likely, I mean... The setting, the day, it's very specific. I think we can solve this. Not today because we don't have enough time, but I think we

would be able to get to the bottom of who Reynolds was. I'm surprised nobody has. We can be that. I mean, I'm sure there are theories out there. Right. Okay. Like I have a feeling we could probably get to the bottom of that. Is Reynolds maybe the name of the person he's been forced to vote as? Or, oh that's a good idea. Or who if somebody has attacked him, is that the name of, and like we would need to look at businesses on that road in that area that has a link to the name Reynolds.

That would be my starting point. The name is going to be my starting point. And then see what that person is, what that person does. If you know the answers to these questions, please know. And also the doctor, right? Snodgrass. Yeah, what's the connection with him? Yeah, because what's the little community they're keeping?

Who is Reynolds? Does Snodgrass know a Reynolds? Is there a Reynolds on Snodgrass's patient books? Yeah. And what, like you say, what is post-community in Baltimore? What does it actually look like when he does go there? Because obviously he's been there before, even if he's not meant to be there in that moment. So, yeah.

So this is a message to the Baltimore Tourist Board. I don't know if you exist, but if you do, please pay for us to come out to Baltimore and we will solve the mystery. We'll solve this mystery that people have been trying to solve for decades. We'll solve it. Give us a week, two, give us two weeks in Baltimore. We can solve this mystery that people have been trying to solve for decades. We'll solve it. Give us a week, two weeks in Baltimore. We can do this basically. You have the right people flyers out first class and we will solve this for you.

We're joking a little bit, but actually the legacy he does leave behind always comforts me a little bit. I think he would enjoy his legacy. I mean, it's incredibly sad, but it is also completely fitting for Poe that this is his end. It makes sense. Do you think he would have liked the Eurovision song? Yeah, definitely. For anyone who hasn't heard it, and I hadn't heard it until we started recording this, the lyrics are literally about being possessed by his spirit and someone says like, oh, you're such a great writer. Oh no, they no, they fancy him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think he'd potentially enjoy that, right?

I think he would. And I think the idea of him haunting people, possessing them and writing through them and using other people's medium. Yeah, there's a typewriter. Although I will say, I don't know if Poe came back and possessed someone if going to the Eurovision Song Contest would be his first port of call. I can imagine him like front row just looking miserable as all these thousands of people around him are like, yeah.

He's just like, oh, God. But tell us a little bit about that legacy then that comes next, because it feels like that's a good place to maybe finish with this one. Edgar Allan Poe is one of America's best remembered writers, a literary giant whose shadow continues to stretch into our deepest imaginations and stalk our waking dreams. His works are not just affecting, terrifyingly haunting and darkly humorous as they are, but they're also innovative. He is often credited as the inventor of detective fiction, and as a master of the unreliable narrator. Across his poems and short stories, you'll

find a heady mix of logic and illogic, rationality and terror, fitting then that his own death should remain such a mystery. But, like a protagonist in any one of his tales, look again and you'll realise things are not quite as they seem. The version of Poe we've inherited today owes as much to spin and post-mortem rewrites as it does to the talent and ingenuity of the original, as Poe knew it would. rights, as it does to the talent and ingenuity of the original, as Poe knew it would. Shortly before his death, he made one of his great literary enemies, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, his executor, handing over to him in death the riches he had penned during his lifetime. It might seem like an odd choice to pick an enemy as the caretaker of your legacy, but

Poe knew what he was doing. Griswold was, as well as being a writer, one of America's leading anthologists. To thrust his writing into Griswold's hands, Poe knew, was to ensure it would find fame and long life beyond his own. In fact, it was Griswold who penned Poe's obituary in the paper, begrudgingly elevating his former colleague to greatness, albeit with some additional shade thrown in. If you're a fan of Poe's writing, you don't need me to convince you of his worth. But if you've never picked up a short story or poem by this strange and remarkable man, let me encourage you to do so now.

His work is multifaceted, frightening, entertaining. It is in many ways all about loss, things and people disappearing from life, only to reappear at the worst possible times, in the worst possible ways. He's interested in guilt and shame, the ways these manifest in our minds and how we might, despite our best efforts, be entirely consumed by them. He asks us to look into the face of the very worst thing we can imagine and not to blink. He asks us to question reality, as Poe himself puts it, all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. Why would he give him? I mean, that's genius. It's such a kind move. I feel as well, like it's just a little dick. I mean, it's so passive aggressive slash actually aggressive

to be like, hey, I know you hated me in life, but here's all my work that you're now the caretaker of. Yeah. Kind of good revenge. I love it. I think, you know, we're talking about how Poe falls out with so many people during his lifetime. And as a critic, he's so brutal and he makes all these enemies

that it's like the final knife in the back of all these people right to be like I've crapped all over you in my career and now you have to elevate me and you if no one's read the obituary of him it's available online it's really really interesting because it what grizzled does is paint this picture of poet we have inherited right this loner this person who struggles with addiction with grief relationships, but is this kind of troubled genius. And of course, some of that is true. And I think Poe would like to cultivate at least some of that himself. But Griswold gives us this version that we absolutely know of him now. And yeah, it's just such a canny decision by Poe to do that.

And it seems like the best thing that he ever did for himself. In a lot of ways a man who didn't really take care of himself and who was kind of a chaotic mess, through no fault of his own in some ways, you know, and obviously in terms of addiction, not his fault, but in the circumstances of his life and being given up by his parents, well, abandoned by his father and made an orphan when his mother dies. But I think he absolutely ensures his legacy, his place in the literary canon, partly through this move. And also something there about Poe being so obsessed with his own afterlives, right? That he's, of course, he's thought about his death and how he'll be remembered and how he wants to come back and haunt people. Of course he has.

Yeah. And I mean, look, he's a very haunting individual through his work and through his image that we discussed in this episode, but I'm glad that he persists. I think he's a real interesting figure on the landscape and it's so true that in terms of the context that we're talking about about Dickens, but there's all sorts of Brontes in England as well at the same time, and Harriet Tubman and everything that's going on. There's so many figures looming in this time period. Listen, we're gonna leave it there. There's so much more that we could talk about, including solving his death. Which we're definitely gonna do.

Which definitely, that's where we're going right now. Thank you for joining us on this little exploration of Ed Graben Poe. It's been such a joy to explore even the dark. I think he'd be delighted that we're talking about his death. I think he'd really love that. He'd be a regular listener of After Dark, I'd like to think. Oh, he'd probably be one of the hosts. We'd have to get him in, in the middle of us looking morose and just there, how are you Edgar, every week. Oh my god, we should have a picture of Edgar

Allen Poe. We should have a cardboard cut out of it, a life size. Listen, we have a million more episodes that you can listen to, so go and listen to those. Leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps other people discover us too. And until next time, as Matty said, go and read some Ed Grell and Pope.