‘Nevermore.’ Hauntingly beautiful. And, we all know where that line comes from - Edgar Allan Poe in his poem the Raven. In fact, if I give you the first line, you can probably say the rest of the first stanza without looking below. Try it: Here’s the first line:
‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,’
Now, shut your eyes and say the rest. I’m thinking that we had to memorize this in High School, or somewhere along the line.
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
"‘Tis some visitor," I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Edgar Allan Poe
But, even if we can recite the poem, most of us don’t know much about his life. And, it was not a long happy life. He lived quite a bit of it in Richmond, VA and, although the small museum devoted to his life and works is not one of the places where he lived, it too has quite a history. Poe was born in Boston January 19, 1809 to two people who were actors, not the most respected occupation in the 1800’s. His father left the family early on, his mother died when he was 3 and he went to live with John and Frances Allan, He got along well with Frances, Mrs Allan, but he and Mr. Allan never seemed to hit it off. Allan, a successful businessman didn’t understand Poe, more a dreamer and a poet who sometimes wrote poems on the back of Allan’s business papers.
Not only that, but when Allan gave money to Poe for college, he didn’t give enough to cover the first year and Poe resorted to gambling to try to cover the rest of the costs. Not a winner, he went back to Allan for more money to cover his gambling debts, was turned down and left the Allan home. Meanwhile he had begun to write and published his first book of poems. He then got an appointment to West Point but, even though he excelled at his studies, he did not excel at the discipline and was kicked out.
He moved around and finally landed in Baltimore, VA where he lived with his aunt and daughter, Virginia, who was 9 years old at the time. In 1836, he married her when she was 14 (although some sources say she was only 13).
Over the next few years he edited a number of literary journals, wrote poetry and a few short stories, was a vicious critic of beloved poet Longfellow and Milton and published some of his best short stories and poems, including ‘The Raven’, ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘Tell Tale Heart’ and others. Interestingly, he was the first author to try to live by writing alone - without a ‘day job’. Unfortunately, this usually made for rocky finances.
Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847 at the age of 25 and Poe’s lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened. On October 3, 1849 he was found semi-conscious and died 4 days later of ‘acute congestion of the brain’ although others have speculated that he died of rabies or alcoholism or epilepsy or carbon monoxide poisoning. There was much speculation.
Never financially successful, he is one of America’s most well-known authors. He is credited with inventing the modern detective novel, a pioneer of science fiction, and the master of the macabre. He lived 40 years but his poetry and short stories will live forever.
The house which houses the Poe collection in Richmond is actually itself the oldest house in Richmond. Though it looks fairly small from the outside, the entire Poe collection is housed is several homes within the whole compound.
Of course, the first thing we saw as we entered was the Black Cat.
There was quite a bit of furniture from the Allan house.
In the back of the garden was a memorial to Poe. When we got closer, we noticed that there is a plethora of coins and other trinkets at the base, put there by admirers.
‘It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.’
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