Our adult tours and programs are great for college students, libraries, senior living groups or anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe. All of our adult tours and programs can be delivered on-site, offsite, or virtually. 

Adult Group Admission Rates

• Payment is due the day of your scheduled program. Payment can be made in-person, by mail, or over the phone by calling (804) 648-5523. We accept card and check payments.
• On-site Admission Rate:
  • Guided tours: $10 per person.
  • Walking tours: $15 per person.
  • Curatorial programs: $15 per person.
• Virtual Program Admission Rate:
  • Virtual programs are $150 per program.
• Outreach Program Admission Rate:
  • Outreach programs are $150 per program if the outreach site is within a 15-mile radius of the Poe Museum. Outreach programs outside of a 15-mile radius are $200 per program.

Guided Tours

Poe Museum Tour

Book a guided tour of the world’s finest collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s artifacts and personal items. Learn about Poe’s tragic life and how it influenced his famous tales of terror. Leave with a greater understanding of the Master of the Macabre and his literary legacy. 

Length: 45-60 minutes

Walking Tour of Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill

Explore Edgar Allan Poe’s old haunts led by a Poe Museum Guide. Walk the streets of Poe’s hometown and see locations associated with Poe and Richmond history, including the 1785 Masonic Hall, St. John’s Episcopal Church, the Elmira Shelton house and more…

Length: 60 minutes

Contact tours@poemuseum.org for more information, and to book a tour.

Curatorial Programs

Poe Museum Curator Chris Semtner is an internationally recognized expert on Poe and has a wide variety of hour-long programs to offer your group, either in-person at your local site or virtually.

Poe’s Life and Legacy

Why are we still reading Poe’s works? Who was the man behind such classic works as “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart?” This presentation will answer these questions and tell the equally tragic and compelling story of Poe’s life, while providing insight on his legacy in literature.

Poe in Richmond

While many cities claim Edgar Allan Poe as their own, Poe considered Richmond his hometown. The River City is the alpha and omega of Poe’s literary legacy. Here is where he wrote his first lines of poetry and got his first job in journalism, and here is where he gave his last public reading before his death.This presentation follows Poe through his many years in Richmond to show how the city influenced his greatest works.

Paranormal Poe: Poe and Victorian Spiritualism

From seances to spirit writing, the Spiritualists attempted to communicate with the other side, additionally, many of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales offer ideas on the afterlife and how the living can communicate with the dead. Poe took advantage of the coinciding rise of the Spiritualist movement in America to share stories of death and life and whatever comes in-between.  This presentation discusses Poe’s connection with the movement and finds out how he inadvertently influenced their beliefs.

Poe and Madness

Many of Edgar Allan Poe’s most popular tales explore the subject of madness. Ever interested in the newest scientific advances, Poe examined the minds of insane narrators in tales like “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” while commenting on the state of mental hospitals in stories like “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.” This presentation takes a look at these works and more to discover Poe’s own thoughts on mental illness and the fine line between sanity and madness.

Sci-Fi Evermore: Poe’s Pioneering Science Fiction

The term Science Fiction conjures up visions of space exploration, advanced technology, and the distant future—but probably not the horror writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, who revolutionized the genre by writing about all these topics. Before there was such a thing as Science Fiction, Poe was writing the groundbreaking works that inspired generations of the writers and filmmakers behind some of your favorite Sci-Fi. Join us for a fantastic voyage through space and time with Sci-Fi’s forgotten pioneer in this illustrated talk.

The Women in Poe’s Life and Literature: The True Stories Behind Poe’s Love Poems

The most important people in Edgar Allan Poe’s life were a select group of women who loved, supported, inspired, and challenged him. While we might remember some of them as the inspirations for his most heartfelt poetry, there is much more to these remarkable women than first meets the eye. They were authors, a businessperson, and even a physician. Get to know them in this illustrated talk.

All curatorial programs are available at your facility or virtually.  Please contact tours@poemuseum.org for more information, and to book a program.