An Eternal Mystery: The Death of Edgar Allan Poe by Susan Van Kirk

 

Years ago, when I was teaching high school American Literature, I remember eagerly anticipating my January curriculum heading into the Romantic Period and the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Recently, I read a review of a new book about Poe’s death called “A Mystery of Mysteries (The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe),” published by St. Martin’s Press in 2023. It’s the latest nonfiction study of Poe’s death, a topic that has launched plenty of books and theories through decades and even centuries. Mark Dawidziak’s new book attempts to debunk myths about how Poe lived and discusses the legends and theories surrounding his death. Of course, I had to read it, and I enjoyed every minute.

But first, a trip back to the few facts we do know about this man. He was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, and died at the age of 40 on October 7, 1849. He was buried in Baltimore in the Westminster Burying Ground. A writer of poems, short stories, essays, and literary reviews, he is best remembered for his scary stories and beautiful poetry. The Raven, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado—these are a few stories from the literary canon many of us remember reading when we were in high school. As Dawidziak surmises, these writings seem more readable in the modern world with their dark view of humanity. Poe’s fame grew long after his death.

A connection to my own location involves a literary magazine Poe was hoping to edit financially backed by a man in the town of Oquawka, Illinois, sixteen miles from my home. An admirer, Edward Howard Norton Patterson, offered to give Poe editorial control of his own literary magazine, and Poe was soliciting subscriptions in May 1849 just prior to his death in October. This was his dream.

The public’s awareness of Poe has been heightened by the ritual involving the cemetery where he’s now buried. From 1949 to 2009, a masked man would approach Poe’s grave and leave three red roses and a bottle of cognac. He wore black clothes, a white scarf, and a big hat, and appeared between midnight and 6 a.m. Each year, a group of admirers watched him but didn’t attempt to stop him, so the mystery remained. Recently, local historians have brought back the ritual with a new mystery man. One theory states that the three red roses symbolize Poe, his wife (Virginia Clemm Poe), and his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm. Where the cognac originated, no one knows. The ritual continues his connection with death, a theme that pervaded his life and writings.

Back to Dawidziak’s new book. The author uses a dual timeline between Poe’s life and the last months prior to his death. Some readers find this non-linear organization confusing or irritating, but I thought it worked well. Debunking some of the myths we know about Poe, Dawidziak explains that many of the details surrounding Poe’s death are not accurate—the time of his death, his final words, people summoned to his deathbed, and how and why he died at the age of 40. As time goes on, the claims about his death become more and more elaborate.

Dawidziak discusses the many theories that have been suggested about how, why, where, when,

and what people attended Poe’s last hours. He uses quotations from letters, articles, newspapers, 19^th century books, modern interviews, and literary researchers/experts to challenge many of the theories we have been told or taught. Of the many guesses about why Poe died, Dawidziak lists brain tumor, rabies, syphilis, tuberculosis, meningitis, alcoholism, heart disease, suicide, murder, drug overdose, influenza, epilepsy, or bacterial or viral infections. These have all been brought forward at various times. He uses the medical knowledge of our time to discuss these causes of death and which theory might be the most believable.

Dawidziak continues his debunking of ideas that have accumulated over the years, but he also acknowledges that this mystery of mysteries provides us with the best of all possibilities: a nondefinitive result. A mystery.

In the end, he concludes, “And, as the maxim reminds us, some mysteries are not meant to be solved, and it must be acknowledged that anything beyond ‘probably’ would surely rob us of the grand mystique surrounding Poe’s death.” (p. 243)