Death of Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe's death in 1849 has some element of mystery to it. There are many established theories as to the cause of his death but none are fully proven. The mystery, incidentally, has added to the intrigue of the story of one of America's most famous writers of horror.

Contents 1 Chronology 2 Cause of Death 3 Funeral 4 Burial and Reburial 5 Character assassination 6 The Poe Toaster 7 See also 8 References

[edit] Chronology

Poe allegedly suffered from bouts of depression and insanity, and in 1848 he nearly died from an overdose of laudanum, then available for general use as a tranquilizer and pain killer. It is unclear if this was a true suicide attempt or just a miscalculation on Poe's part.^[1]

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore, delirious and "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance," according to the friend who found him, Dr. E. Snodgrass. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital,^[2] where he died early on the morning of October 7. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own.

Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred. One Poe scholar, W. T. Bandy, has suggested that he may instead have called for "Herring" (Poe's uncle was called Henry Herring).^[3] Poe's attending physician, Dr. John Moran, claims he attempted to cheer him up in one of the few times he was awake. Moran told him he would soon be enjoying the company of friends, to which Poe allegedly replied that "the best thing his friend could do would be to blow out his brains with a pistol."^[4] Moran also reported that Poe's final words were "Lord, help my poor soul."

[edit] Cause of Death

The precise cause of Poe's death is disputed but many theories exist. Many biographers have tackled the issue and come up with different conclusions ranging from Jeffrey Meyers's assertion that it was hypoglycemia to John Evangelist Walsh's conspiratorial murder plot theory.^[5]

Dr. Snodgrass was convinced that Poe died as a result of alcoholism and did a great deal to popularize this interpretation of the events. He was, however, a supporter of the temperance movement who found Poe a useful example in his work. Later scholars have shown that his account of Poe's death distorts facts to support his theory.

Dr. John Moran, the physician who attended Poe, stated in his own 1885 account that "Edgar Allan Poe did not die under the effect of any intoxicant, nor was the smell of liquor upon his breath or person." This was, however, only one of several, sometimes contradictory, accounts of Poe's last days which he published and lectured on over the years, so his testimony cannot be considered entirely reliable.

The theory of Poe's alcoholism, both as cause of death and throughout his life, is being disputed and is beginning to be dismissed. Poe had a severe weakness to alcohol and became drunk even after one glass of wine. Poe has gone several months at a time without alcohol and seemed to have no attachment to it. According to this theory, the only reason Poe drank was because of unfortunate events in his life, which there seemed to be no end.^[6][7]

In a psychological study of Poe, one psychologist suggest that Poe was a dipsomaniac. A dipsomaniac is a person who sufffers from frequent seizures that lead to excesses, often alcoholic, and always immoral, in which the person cannot rember what has happened to him or her.^[8]

Cholera is another possibility. While in Richmond during the summer of 1849, Poe wrote letters to his aunt, Maria Clemm (July 7th), and to a newspaperman, E.H.N. Patterson (July 19th and August 7th), in which he confided that he may have contracted Cholera in Philadelphia. Cholera is also a theme in three of his short stories (The Masque of the Red Death, The Sphinx, Bon-Bon).

Numerous other theories have been proposed over the years, including several forms of rare brain disease, diabetes, various types of enzyme deficiency, syphilis, the idea that Poe was shanghaied, drugged, and used as a pawn in a ballot-box-stuffing scam (cooping) during the election that was held on the day he was found,^[9] and, more recently, rabies. The rabies death theory was proposed by Dr. R. Michael Benitez, and is based upon the fact that Poe's symptoms before death are similar to those displayed in a classic case of rabies.^[10] Cats play a prominent part in many of his stories, and it has been conjectured that he was accidentally bitten by a rabid pet.

In the absence of contemporary documentation (all surviving accounts are either incomplete or published years after the event; even Poe's death certificate, if one was ever made out, has been lost), it is likely that the cause of Poe's death will never be known.

[edit] Funeral

Poe's funeral was a simple one, held on Monday afternoon, October 8, 1849. Very few people attended the ceremony. Poe's uncle, Henry Herring, provided a simple mahogany coffin and cousin Neilson Poe supplied the hearse for transportation of the body. The funeral was presided over by the Reverent W. T. D. Clemm, cousin of Poe's wife Virginia. Also in attendance were Dr. Snodgrass, Baltimore lawyer and former University of Virginia classmate Z. Collins Lee, Poe's first cousin Elizabeth Herring and her husband, and former schoolmaster Joseph Clarke. The entire ceremony lasted only three minutes in the cold, damp weather.^[11]

[edit] Burial and Reburial

Poe is buried on the grounds of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground,^[12] now part of the University of Maryland School of Law^[13] in Baltimore.

Even after his death, Poe has created controversy and mystery. Because of his fame, school children collected money for a new burial spot closer to the front gate. He was reburied on October 1, 1875. A celebration was held at the dedication of the new tomb on November 17. Likely unknown to the reburial crew, however, the headstones on all the graves, previously facing to the east, were turned to face the West Gate in 1864.[1] Therefore, as it was described in a seemingly fitting turn of events:

In digging on what they erroneously thought to be the right of the General Poe the committee naturally first struck old Mrs. Poe who had been buried thirty-six years before Edgar's mother-in-law; they tried again and presumably struck Mrs. Clemm who had been buried in 1876 only four years earlier. Henry's Poe's brother foot stone, it there, was respected for they obviously skipped over him and settled for the next body, which was on the Mosher lot. Because of the excellent condition of the teeth, he would certainly seem to have been the remains of Philip Mosher Jr, of the Maryland Militia, age 19.

The grave bears no epitaph, though many (including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) made suggestions for appropriate epitaphs. An earlier stone of white Italian marble had been carved with an epitaph, but it was destroyed before it reached the grave when a train derailed and plowed through the monument yard where it was being kept.

[edit] Character assassination

After Poe's death, an obituary appeared signed by "Ludwig" and later revealed to be Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Calling Poe a "brilliant, but erratic" star, Griswold used the obituary as a starting point for his character assassination of Poe. He claimed Poe was known for walking the streets in delirium, muttering to himself. Griswold accused Poe of excessive arrogance, that he assumed all men were villains, and that he was quick to anger. First printed in the New York Tribune, the Ludwig obituary was soon reprinted throughout the country.

Griswold had served as an agent for several American authors but it is unclear if Griswold was appointed by Poe to be his literary executor, if it was a trick on Griswold's part, or a mistake made by Poe's aunt and mother-in-law Muddy.^[14] Regardless, he presented a collection of Poe's work with a "Memoir" serving as a biography of Poe's life. Poe was depicted as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman. Many parts of it were believed to have been forged by Griswold and it was denounced by those who knew Poe, including Sarah Helen Whitman, Charles Frederick Briggs, and George Rex Graham.^[15] Griswold's account became a popularly accepted one, however, in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted, and in part because it seemed to accord with the narrative voice Poe used in much of his fiction.

No accurate biography of Poe appeared until John Ingram's of 1875. Years later, Arthur Hobson Quinn was able to discover that Griswold had forged and re-written a number of Poe's letters that were included in his "Memoir."^[16] By then, however, Griswold's depiction of Poe was entrenched in the mind of the public, not only in America but around the world. Griswold's madman image of Poe is still existent in the modern perceptions of the man himself.

[edit] The Poe Toaster

Main article: Poe Toaster

Poe's grave site has become a popular tourist attraction. Beginning in 1949, the grave has been visited every year in the early hours of Poe's birthday, January 19th, by a mystery man known endearingly as the Poe Toaster. It has been reported that a man (or woman) draped in black with a silver-tipped cane, kneels at the grave for a toast of Martel Cognac and leaves the half-full bottle and three red roses. One theory (of many) is that the three red roses are in memory of Poe himself, his mother-in-law, and his wife Virginia.

[edit] See also

• Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture, the circumstances of his death have inspired a number of fictional retellings and investigations.

[edit] References