*Ø* Blogmanac October 7, 1849 | Death of Mr Poe

Lord, help my soul.
Last words of Edgar Allan Poe

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 of the 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.
Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a literary rival and secret enemy of Edgar Allen Poe

Mother is the name of god on the lips and hearts of all children.
Edgar Allan Poe



Edgar Allen Poe, American poet and writer of macabre tales (The Tell Tale Heart; The Raven), died on this day in 1849 after a drinking binge in Baltimore, Maryland. The great author of such classic poems as ‘Annabel Lee’, prescient essays like Eureka, A Prose Poem, and chilling tales such as The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red Death, Poe was not a heavy drinker but someone who might have had an allergy to alcohol, for even a glass or two could send him into extreme behaviour.

On October 3 he had been found, delirious and incoherent at a low-class tavern in Lombard Street, by Dr James E Snodgrass. Summoning one of Poe’s relatives, Dr. Snodgrass took the now unconscious and dying poet to the Washington Hospital where he was put into the care of Dr JJ Moran, the resident physician. Several days of delirium followed, with Poe only occasionally regaining partial consciousness. On his death bed he repeatedly called the name “Reynolds”, and he did know a Reynolds, but not closely. Shortly before dying, he said “the best thing a friend could do for me is blow out my brains with a pistol”. He became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time. Then, gently, moving his head, he said, “Lord help my poor soul”.

The Poe Toaster
Poe is buried in the Old Western Burial Ground in Baltimore. Since 1949, every January 19, Poe's birthday, a mysterious visitor dressed in black and wearing a fedora hat has left on Poe's grave a half-filled bottle of cognac accompanied by three red roses. The significance of cognac is uncertain as it does not feature in Poe's works as does, for example, amontillado. Several of the bottles of cognac from prior years are on display in the Baltimore Poe House and Museum. It has been suggested that the roses represent Poe himself and the two women who were most important to the poet during his troubled life: his mother, and his wife, both of whom are in repose in the same cemetery.

One source suggests that the mysterious man is in fact a succession of men, and when one mourner retires he hands the torch of this enigmatic remembrance to another. In fact, in 1993, the original dark stranger left a note saying, “The torch will be passed”. In 2001 the ‘Poe Toaster’, as he is known, left a note that indicated he was a football fan as well as a Poe aficionado. Each year, a band of Poe devotees watches at a distance for the stranger to appear and fulfil his unknown rite at the grave, taking care not to interfere.

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Feast day of Pallas Athena, ancient Greece
Patroness of Athens, she was later worshipped in Rome as the goddess Victoria. Christianised to St Victoria, or Our Lady of Victories. Her image was placed on top of ceremonial arches, such as Marble Arch in London and Brandenburg Gate, Berlin.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door --
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door --
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Poe, The Raven