Poe published several columns on cryptography entitled “A Few Words on Secret Writing.” He explains that advanced puzzles, where the only secret to the code is “locked in the creator’s mind can be very difficult or nearly impossible to solve.” Poe mentions that the acclaimed sixteenth-century English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon “very properly defined three essentials in secret correspondence.” Bacon’s first essential is that the cipher should “elude suspicion of being a cipher.” Secondly, that its alphabet should be so simple “as to demand but little time in the construction of the epistle.” Thirdly, that it should be “absolutely insoluble without the key.” Poe adds the fourth essential: “With the key, it is promptly and certainly decipherable” (147), perhaps, because he felt that he needed to solve the submitted puzzles in time to have them published in the upcoming issues of his journal articles. He quotes from a letter from a reader who has never been authenticated, named “W.B. Tyler,” who praises Poe’s correct solution to Dr. Charles J. Frailey’s puzzles. This mysterious letter pronounces: “You have exhibited a power of analytical and synthetical reasoning I have never seen equaled… I crown you the king of secret readers” (141). “Tyler’s” letter also proposes two additional challenging ciphers—which, according to Rosenheim, were among the only “legitimate” ones submitted that Poe was never able to solve” (39).
Poe explained in his December 1841 Graham’s article that Tyler’s cipher was indecipherable because it was improperly constructed. Rosenheim supports Poe’s assertion by stating that it was difficult to solve because spaces and punctuation were omitted between the letters and that it was written backward (38). Poe also states that he did not work at Tyler’s second challenge because the many ciphers being submitted to him by his readers “were beginning to take too much of his time” (149). In other words, it did not meet Poe’s fourth condition for legitimate puzzles. Rosenheim initially commented that Tyler’s longer second cipher “remains unsolved—and is likely to stay so for some time.” He wrote that in order “to solve that cipher, one needs to identify up to 156 characters…using six alphabets” (39).
However, after publishing this statement, Rosenheim had reservations about his initial conclusions and decided to determine whether twentieth-century cryptographers could unlock the second and most difficult unsolved puzzle. Rosenheim’s subsequent contest in early 2000, which he called, “The Edgar Allan Poe Cryptographic Challenge, “was supported by a $2500 prize from Williams College for anyone who could solve Tyler’s ciphers. On October 31, 2000, Newswise, an academic science news service of Williams College reported that both ciphers had been solved by a software programmer living in Toronto, named Gil Bronza. According to Rosenheim, it turned out that the second cipher was a polyalphabetic substitution cipher and contained “over two dozen mistakes.” It is ironic that it took a modern computer analyst to decipher the only two unsolved ciphers of the hundreds that readers submitted to Poe. I have been informed by our present-day Curator, Chris Semtner, that Gil Bronza visited the Poe Museum after winning the prize money. Despite Poe’s inability to solve a puzzle proposed by Tyler, or possibly himself, Rosenheim concludes that Poe was one of the most skilled cryptologists in history (Cryptographic Imagination 24). He points out that Poe’s columns on secret codes were also the first ones to be featured in popular newspapers. They generated a continued interest in this topic in and after Poe’s lifetime. Poe’s cipher format has also been proliferated in the present era in newspaper columns like Poe’s called “The Puzzle of the Day.” Poe next demonstrates that his interests in science are diverse, ranging from technical topics about chess and computers and from discussions about pseudo-science to unlocking solutions to deeply hidden puzzles and mysteries.
Selected Sources
Poe, Edgar Allan.The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
Rosenheim, Shawn. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Allan Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997.
Poe continued to demonstrate an interest in unlocking mysteries and secrets in several of the essays and newspaper columns he wrote on secret codes and cryptography. These popular weekly columns offered puzzles, in which readers were invited to propose solutions and suggest additional ones for use in subsequent editions. He then provided the solutions to the ciphers in subsequent issues. Once Poe introduced the topic, readers sent in hundreds of other ciphers. His columns on secret writing became a very popular component of Graham’s Magazine. According to Shawn Rosenheim’s The Cryptographic Imagination, Poe’s four articles in Graham’s on secret writing are among the first published texts on the subject of cryptography. Rosenheim, a scholarly authority on secret codes in science and literature, notes that Cryptology “is composed of two parts: cryptography, the art of making codes, and cryptanalysis, the art of breaking them down” (254).
Poe’s “A Few Words on Secret Writing” first appeared in the July 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine. As Poe writes, “We can scarcely imagine a time when there did not exist a necessity of transmitting information from one individual to another, in such a manner as to elude general comprehension.” Therefore, “we may well suppose the practice of writing in cipher to be of great antiquity” (Complete Works XIV 114). Poe’s accounts range from how the ancients used hieroglyphics to how the early Greeks used scytala, or wooden blocks, to carry secret messages between officers and messengers. He notes that the modern uses of secret communications started with the invention of letters and printed communications. “Few persons can be made to believe that it is not quite easy to invent a method of secret writing which shall baffle the investigation.” However, he acknowledges that people have different skill levels in solving secret codes. “It will be found that, while one cannot unriddle the commonest cipher, the other will scarcely be puzzled by the most abstruse” (116).
Demonstrating how secret codes may be formed and solved, Poe begins with simple substitution codes, where letters, numbers, and symbols stand for others. For example, he writes that in a systematic substitution code, “z” may stand for an “a,” and “x” for a “b.” In a random code, “a” may stand for “p,” and “b” for other variable letters. Harder to decipher codes, he suggests, may be constructed by using symbols for letters. He notes that there have been many attempts to construct such advanced codes, such as those that have perpetually shifting solutions. Many of them, he says “have about them an air of inscrutable secrecy. It appears almost an impossibility to unriddle what has been put together by so complex a method” (118). Poe’s suggestion that some ciphers have “an air of inscrutable secrecy” appears to be setting readers up for his explaining why he has been unable to perform a workable cryptanalysis on two inscrutable puzzles, which were apparently sent in by a reader named , “Tyler.” In next month’s column, I will discuss Poe’s explanations on why he couldn’t solve these two puzzles, speculation about whether those puzzles might have been submitted by Poe, and how it took until the year of 2000, prize money by a famous research university, and a modern computer programmer named Gil Bronza to unravel “Tyler’s” almost inscrutable ciphers.
Selected Sources
Poe, Edgar Allan.The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
Rosenheim, Shawn. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Allan Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997.
Poe continued his interest in spectacular news stories that blurred the lines between fact and fiction in an 1836 review on this topic: “A Review of Phrenology and the Moral Influences of Phrenology.” During the nineteenth century, there had been many debates among scientists whether Phrenology was a legitimate science or a pseudo-science. Advocates of this belief often used emotional appeals and anecdotal testimonials in order to “prove” that their views were supported by empirical science. This subject also received intense interest from the public and much coverage in the newspapers and magazines that Poe would have been exposed to as a journalist. Thus, it is likely that Poe was assigned by his editor to investigate this topic. Later in 1836, Poe wrote a more extensive report for the Southern Literary Messenger titled, “Phrenology and the Moral Influence of Phrenology,” which has been reprinted in James A. Harrison’s Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe,Volume VIII.
In this second SLM article, Poe reported on the “General Study” and “Discoveries” of Phrenology that were conducted by Gall, Spurzheim, and others. His account of the works of several of the “prominent” persons conducting research on phrenology demonstrates that he was interested in exploring a broad range of popular science-related topics. However, a careful reading of his commentaries also reveals that he maintained journalistic neutrality on a subject that was being questioned at that time by the public as well as by the professional scientific community. In his report, Poe assures readers that “Phrenology is no longer to be laughed at. It has assumed the majesty of a science; and, as a science, ranks among the most important which can engage the attention of thinking beings” (Collected Writings 8: 252). His use of the wording, “assumed the majesty of a science” indicates that he is enthusiastic about reporting on the subject, while also remaining personally non-committal concerning whether Phrenology is a valid area of scientific investigation. He maintains journalistic neutrality when he reports that the study of this science is “very extensively accredited in Germany, in France, in Scotland, and in both Americas.” He describes how a single lecture, in Scotland by Dr. Spurzheim “gained five hundred converts to Phrenology…Northern Athens is now a stronghold for the faith” (252). His use of the words “converts” and “faith” indicates that he may not have been convinced that Phrenology was as much of a hard science as many of its believers claimed. During this period, most scientists and religious leaders rejected the claims that there were connections between empirically-based fields of science and faith-based spiritual practices. Poe reports that its followers claim that with a well-directed inquiry of Phrenology, “Individuals may obtain, through the science, a perfectly accurate estimate of their moral capabilities…and will be better fitted for decision in regard to a choice of offices and duties in life” (253). It is difficult to determine whether those reporters’ extraordinary claims are serious or “tongue in cheek.” Therefore, his documentation of Phrenology’s classification system could be read as a serious scientific description, or as a satirical expose—depending on whether readers agree or disagree that it is a science.
Poe writes that the study and classification system of Phrenology is often divided into the two main categories of “Instinctive Propensities and Sentiments,” and “Intellectual Faculties.” The former category includes the traits of “Domestic Affections, Preservative Faculties, Prudential Sentiments, Regulating Powers, Imaginative Powers, and Moral Sentiments.” As an example, “Domestic Affectations” include Embraces, Philopregentiveness, Inhabitiveness, and Attachment. The second main category, “Intellectual Faculties,” is divided into “Observing, Scientific, Reflecting, and the Subservient Faculties—which is language.” In another example, “Reflecting Faculties” include Eventuality, Comparison, Causality, and Wit” (254).
Poe concludes his report by noting that studies of Phrenology have emphasized that the particular shape of a person’s head may denote particular talents or dispositions. He writes that “Edinensis” reported that the brain and head of an “Idiot” may be very small and that large headed people may be marked with animal tendencies. He writes that “Gall” claimed that a person who has a skull “Which is elevated or high above the ears…and thrown forward, so as to be nearly perpendicular with its base, may be presumed to lodge a brain of greater power…than a skull deficient in such proportion” (255).
After reading Poe’s journalistic reporting, it is difficult to determine whether he believed in Phrenology. Although he provided several testimonials from people of that “faith,” he provided no personal statement on that subject. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude if Poe’s story was more likely influenced by the public’s interest in Phrenology or by his belief that it was or was not a science. Yet, we can see in Poe’s reports that he revealed many interesting details and flaws about this subject. It must be noted again here, that this topic was considered by many to be a legitimate subject of scientific inquiry in the nineteenth century. Regardless of whether Poe believed these accounts were credible, they provided him with a phrenological framework for the descriptions and features of several characters in his later fictional works, such as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” We shall discuss these characteristics in my later discussions about Poe’s science-based fiction. In next month’s blog, I will begin a two-part series on Poe’s interest in puzzles and Cryptography.
Selected References
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume VIII: Early Criticism I. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
Charles Babbage’s First Automated Chess Machine on Display in the London Science Museum
Poe Exposes Maelzel’s Automated Chess Player, Part II
Murray Ellison | Dec. 2nd, 2017
Original Illustration Published in Poe’s “Automated Chess-Player”
In 1836, Poe asks readers of the Richmond-based Southern Literary Messenger to ponder the implications for the future if a machine could calculate without human input. He writes, “There is no analogy, whatever, between the operations of the chess-player and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage,” Poe argues. If we chose to call the former a pure machine, we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond comparison, the most wonderful invention of mankind,” referring to the prototypes of the “Difference Engine,” which was introduced in London between 1789 and 1791 by mechanical engineer Charles Babbage. He has been credited with having been the first inventor of the mechanical computer. His machine could solve complex polynomial equations (Isaacson). Poe acknowledges that Babbage’s machine can compute when a programmer controls and anticipates the possible outcomes and solves for the expected results. He argues that the automated chess “Player” would have to be “the most wonderful invention of mankind” to counter the moves of a human opponent, and remains skeptical that the machine can do what Maelzel claimed.
Poe’s report begins with the historical background of the machine. The “chess-player” was invented in 1769 by Wolfgang von Kempelen, who took it to European cities beginning in 1804. It was later purchased by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, who was also an early inventor of the automatic music player. Maelzel exhibited the chess-player in European cities and first demonstrated it in the “principal towns” of the United States in 1821. Poe writes: “Baron Kempelen had no scruple in declaring it to be a very ordinary piece of mechanism.” It was “a bagatelle whose effects appeared so marvelous only from the boldness of conception, and the fortunate choices of the methods adopted for promoting the illusion.”
Poe was most concerned that in the publicity about the machine, Maelzel made implicit claims that the “automaton” had the intelligence to regulate its moves. Instead, he proposes an alternative hypothesis: “It is quite certain that the operations of the Automaton are regulated by mind, and by nothing else.” He offers the central research issue for his investigation: “The only question then is of the manner in which human agency is brought to bear. He reasons that any machine created by man could act only in a mathematical or systematic way. The machine, he states, would need to respond to the data it had received within a given set of expected outcomes. Poe’s main argument is that he believes that it would be inconceivable for a machine to anticipate the almost infinite number of possible complex chess moves needed to counter a human opponent.
After reviewing the previous theories about the “automaton,” he concludes that none of them has revealed how the machine makes chess moves. Poe either has not see or has chosen to omit news reports in other cities where the automaton was exposed as a fraud. Nevertheless, to confirm his own conclusion, he makes several visits to the exhibit in Richmond and writes, “Maelzel displays the inside of the machine to prove his point. Its whole interior is crowded with wheels, pinions, levers, and other machinery so that the eyes cannot penetrate but a little distance into the mass.” He observes that Maelzel adds to the intrigue by opening only one of the three doors at a time, opening the front doors of the machine at one time and the back doors at another (see illustration from Poe’s published article on the automaton). Poe describes how the audience reacts to Maelzel’s deceptions:
“In general, every spectator is now thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and completely scrutinized, at one and the same time, every portion of the Automaton, and the idea of any person being concealed in the interior if ever entertained is immediately dismissed as preposterous in the extreme.”
Poe writes that Maelzel’s efforts to demonstrate that no one is inside of the console are designed to support the validity of his claim that the machine reasons according to its artificial intelligence or programming. He emphasizes that that he is not deceived by Maelzel’s illusions. He makes several additional visits to the exhibition to investigate how the machine operates. Poe derives the conclusion that Maelzel was not regulating the board because his back was always turned away from the machine when the machine was making its moves. Maelzel turned around and opened doors in the front and back of the machine in an attempt to give the illusion that no one could be inside of the machine. However, Poe observes that the interio is not fully visible when Maelzel opened any one of the doors. He also reveals that the machine employs concealed mirrors to aid in the deception. He describes Maelzel’s distractive tactics: A chess move is made by the mechanical manipulation of a small concealed man inside of the machine, who controls a “Turk” constructed as a robot. Poe adds: When asked, Maelzel declined to comment on how his automaton worked. Poe concludes that, “We do not believe that any reasonable objection can be urged against this solution of the Automaton Chess-Player.”
Poe’s investigative report demonstrated that he was, from the beginning of his career, interested in exploring technical challenges that required creativity and scientific inquiry. His exposé showed that he was also interested in exploring the boundaries between scientific news and fiction. In addition, he wanted to challenge unrealistic claims of those he was investigating and debunking their myths. The ways that he defined the issues and proposed solutions in “Maelzel’s Chess-Player,” according to Pollin, foreshadowed the scientific methods he established in his later tales of ratiocination. Neil Harris argues that Poe “uncovered the secret of Maelzel’s automatic chess player, and so broke down an illusion with as much skill as he used to create one.” Poe also concluded that the public could be deceived by almost any spectacular false notion supported by circumstantial facts. What appeared to be certainly true, could also be untrue. This story also revealed that Poe had the insight to ask the important question concerning the future, such as: What would the future be like if machines could think? Would automation be an advantage or disadvantage in the future?
In the next Poe and Science, I plan to write about Poe’s published articles on Phrenology.
Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.
Kennedy, Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Margenau, Henry. The Scientist. New York: Life Science Library, 1964.
Poe, Edgar A. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume VIII: Early Criticism I. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
—. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
—. The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Eds. Burton R. Pollin, and Joseph V. Ridgeley. New York: Gordian Press, 1997.
Pollin, Burton R. “Creator of Words.” Baltimore: Lecture delivered at the Fifty-first Annual Commemoration of the Edgar A. Poe Society, July 7, 1973. Web. 1 March 2015.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998.
Poe is on the move! After nearly six decades sitting across the street from the home of Poe’s first great love and muse, Richmond’s statue of Edgar Allan Poe has been displaced to make room for some newer sculptures. This is only the latest in many twists and turns in the life of Virginia’s first public Poe statue.
It all began in 1906, when a small band of writers, historians, and artists proposed the installation of a statue of Poe in the author’s hometown. Lack of funding—and a general lack of public enthusiasm—soon brought their efforts to an end. By then, Richmond was already lagging behind other cities in memorializing Poe. Baltimore had placed a Poe monument in Westminster Burying Grounds in 1875. The Actors’ Guild of New York had dedicated their own Poe monument in 1885. This was followed by the University of Virginia’s bronze bust honoring its most famous dropout in 1899. In the years after Richmond’s efforts to construct a statue stalled, Edmond Quinn sculpted a Poe bust for the Poe Cottage in Fordham (installed 1909) while Richmond’s Sir Moses Ezekiel made a statue of a seated Poe for Baltimore (installed 1922).
Quinn’s Poe Bust at the Poe Cottage
Fifty years later, in 1956, an eighty-seven-year-old retired Richmond physician and his wife were visiting the Poe Cottage. He stood in silence for several minutes in front of Quinn’s Poe bust before turning to tell his wife, “I shall devote the necessary time and money to have Poe recognized by a permanent memorial within the confines of the city he acclaimed as his home.”
Born in Charlotte County in 1869, Dr. George Edward Barksdale had long admired Poe’s works since wiling away hours of his boyhood reading poetry during his free time as a country store clerk. At the same time, he was studying Pharmacy and Chemistry in order to open his own pharmacy in Richmond. A few years later, he attended medical school and eventually became a surgeon and a professor at the Medical College of Virginia. The fortune earned over the course of a long and distinguished career made it possible for him to fund the construction of Richmond’s Poe statue.
The Full-Size Plaster Model for Rudy’s Poe at the Poe Museum
Upon his return from Fordham, Barksdale wrote Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanley, “I will engage a recognized sculptor to reproduce in bronze a life-sized likeness of Edgar Allan Poe, provided the commonwealth of Virginia will provide a substantial base for the statue to rest upon.” Gov. Stanley forwarded the offer to the Art Commission, which had to select the site and material for the base. There must have been some disagreement over the base, since a rejected sandstone version turned up in a Richmond landfill in the 1970s. (You can now see it on display outside the Poe Museum.)
Poe Packed for His Move, 2017
For his statue, Barksdale secured the services of award-winning Pennsylvania sculptor Charles Rudy. Having attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Edmond Quinn had also studied, Rudy went on to win a gold medal from the National Sculpture Society as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. His most famous commissions include Noah on the Bronx General Post Office, the Confederate War Memorial on Stone Mountain, and two bas-relief profiles of Benjamin Franklin on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Rudy’s Modernist style favored simplified forms over realistic or expressive detail. Critic Bern Ikeler found Rudy’s style “clean, simple, strong.” These terms aptly describe Rudy’s Poe. The seated bronze figure sits stock-straight with his hands on his lap. One holds a pen while the grasps a stack of papers. Underneath his simple, unadorned chair is a pile of books. The face is expressionless; the pose, static. Oddly, the head bears a little more of a resemblance to the aged Barksdale than to Poe.
Moving Rudy’s Poe, 2017
The sculpture may have been ready by 1956, but Virginia was not. Rudy’s bronze sat in storage for two years before finding a home on Capitol Square, in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Capitol. While the square’s many other public sculptures stood in a row at the top of the hill, Poe occupied a quiet spot all by himself near the bottom. The Arts Commission, however, decided Poe would have liked it there. After all, Jane Stith Craig Stanard, the woman Poe called “the first, purely ideal love of my soul” lived in a house that once stood across the street. As a boy, he visited her there, and she encouraged his writing. After her illness and early death, he dedicated the poem “To Helen” to her. These early verses reference Capitol Square’s classical architecture, and the last stanza begins, “Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche/How statue-like I see thee stand!” It seemed appropriate to place the statue where he could see her in her window-niche—even if he was facing the opposite direction.
Installing Rudy’s Poe in its New Location, 2017
Months after it arrived on the square, the Poe statue was formally dedicated on October 7, 1959—the 110th anniversary of Poe’s death. Virginia’s Attorney General, Albertis S. Harrison, Jr., presided over the ceremony. After an invocation by Dr. William B. Ward of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Barksdale unveiled the statue, and University of Virginia professor James Southall Wilson delivered an address. Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. accepted the gift on behalf of the General Assembly of Virginia. The program for the event includes the text of “To Helen” but does not indicate if the poem was recited at the time or who might have done so. One person not in attendance was Dr. Barksdale, who had not lived to see the dedication.
Poe in its New Location, 2017
For a town that took a while to build its first Poe statue, Richmond has become a repository for Poe statuary. Among the many pieces now at the Poe Museum are the Actors’ Guild of New York’s previously mentioned Poe monument, a copy of the University of Virginia’s Poe bust, and the plaster version of the Edmond Quinn bust that inspired Barksdale to commission his statue. In 2014, the James Michener Museum of Art even donated the full-sized plaster model of Rudy’s Poe statue, making Richmond home to two different versions.
Rudy’s Poe on November 24, 2017
As for Rudy’s and Barksdale’s bronze Poe, on November 22, Fine Art Specialists, experts in moving large artworks, hauled the statue and its polished granite base up the hill to the northwest corner of Capitol Square. Rudy’s Poe now rests in the shadow of Thomas Crawford’s massive 1857 equestrian statue of George Washington, which is itself encircled by sculptures of famous Revolutionary Era Virginians from Thomas Jefferson to Patrick Henry. We like to think of this as the Commonwealth’s long overdue acknowledgement that Poe is one of our literary founding fathers. Poe’s new location also places it near the entrance to the General Assembly Building where he can keep an eye on Virginia’s legislators.
From train accidents, bridge collapses, and steamboat wrecks, to diseases such as the “White Plague,” or tuberculosis, it is undeniable that the nineteenth century was a witness of tragedy and deep mourning. Although the idea of mourning and mourning culture is not exclusive to the 1800s, it is safe to say the 1800s may have especially romanticized death and dying. Consider Poe, who wrote in The Philosophy of Composition, “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world…” From post-mortem photography and paintings to mourning brooches and tear vials; from black-bordered stationery to requirements of attire and length of mourning time–all these things make mourning culture of the 1800s worth exploring.
Watercolor Death Portrait of Virginia Clemm Poe.
In our collection, there are several objects and manuscripts relating to or similar to mourning objects, which will be examined in this article. Our first object is the death portrait of Virginia Clemm Poe, wife of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1842, Virginia Clemm Poe contracted tuberculosis, said to have been discovered while singing at the piano before her husband and mother Maria. The next five years were years of torment for Edgar, who strived to care for his wife. His faculties were in vain as, without proper medication, the disease claimed Virginia and she died on January 30, 1847. The painted portrait in our collection showcases Virginia just days after her death—her pale pallor and listless eyes display a stirring image. Not only were these haunting death portraits common during this era, but photographs of the deceased were also common during this time. With the introduction of the daguerreotype in the 1840’s, discovered by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in the 1830’s, meant customers could preserve themselves in a silver-tinted memento, which could then be used for display or to wear (which we will look at later on in this article). Because many potential customers could afford neither paintings nor photographs during their lifetime, the post-mortem photograph became a last resort for families in order to preserve the memories of their loved ones. Although we do not carry a post-mortem photograph in our collection—no, that “post-mortem” photograph of Edgar floating about the internet is not, in fact, of Poe—our Virginia death portrait still stands as a lovely example of capturing beauty in death. (Note: We would like to warn our readers that post-mortem photography is not for the faint of heart. Should you look examples of these up, Google may supply disturbing images.)
Faux “Death Photo of Poe”
Just as preserving one’s image was important to the nineteenth-century, preserving other, physical mementos was important. Of course, material items such as clothing or books were held onto; but, in this case, we’re talking about hair. It may seem peculiar that hair was so precious during this era; however, it may not seem odd when compared to our modern culture’s custom of keeping baby teeth after they fall out.
Just as we sometimes tuck away teeth after they’ve done their Tooth Faerie duty, Victorians would snip a lock of hair, either from the living or, in our case, from the deceased, and also tuck it in a safe place. If cut from the deceased, it was most likely used for mourning and memorial purposes. Our museum has a few examples displaying the crafty ways hair was used, including our hair wreath and a lock of Poe’s hair. The former object, the hair wreath, serves as an example of how the living would save their hair, often in a hair receiver, and re-purpose it to create intricate hairy flowers and leaves. Often times as well, tiny, delicate decorations, such as colored pins and pearls were incorporated to enhance the artistic design of the memorial piece. The latter object mentioned, being a lock of Poe’s hair, serves as our example of a post-mortem memento. Not only does our museum own a lock of Poe’s hair, but other locks of hair remain floating about. In 1875, during the disinterment of Poe’s body, the coffin he was in gave way, exposing his corpse before the public. Those standing by proceeded to cut off pieces of Poe’s hair, perhaps to use for their own mournful ceremonies, or, perhaps, to say they owned a piece of Poe. Regardless of their intentions, these post-mortem mementos remain in circulation to this day, and we are especially proud to own a lock. On a side note, I wonder if Edgar woke up one day in his grave, only to discover he had received a bad haircut? A bad hair day makes for a bad day, period. (Read more about the disinterment of Poe here.)
But what would have been the significance of keeping Poe’s lock of hair, for example, except to prove that the man did, in fact, exist at some point, or if not to use in a decorative and complicated hair wreath? Mourning brooches were a fad that seemed to rise during the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, alongside other pieces of mourning jewelry. For example, according to Meredith Woerner in her article, “Love after Death: The Beautiful, Macabre World of Mourning Jewelry,” pocket watches, lockets, fobs (braided hair ropes with a locket, especially used for pocket watches), cufflinks, and rings were used for these purposes (source). Our museum just had a previous showcasing of both Edgar and Virginia’s hair, carefully preserved in lockets, which you can read more about here.
But why wear these lock-laden brooches during a period of mourning? It was socially acceptable, by all means. These brooches, or other various pieces of mourning jewelry, would perfectly accessorize black clothing worn by family members. Pauline Weston Thomas in her article, “Mourning Fashion, Fashion History” for Fashion-Era Online, provides an excellent explanation of the etiquette of mourning-wear by explaining:
“A widow would mourn for two and a half years, with the first year and a day in full mourning. During that time, pieces of the crape covered just about all of a garment at deepest mourning, but the crape was partially removed to reach the period of secondary mourning which lasted nine months. After that the crape was defunct and a widow could wear fancier lusher fabrics or fabric trims made from black velvet and silk and have them adorned with jet trimming, lace, fringe, and ribbons.
In the final six months, a period called half mourning began. Ordinary clothes could be worn in acceptable subdued shades of grey, white or purple, violet, pansy, heliotrope, soft mauve and of course black. Every change was subtle and gradual, beginning firstly with trims of these colors being added to the black dresses. These were the transitional mourning dresses from secondary mourning to the final stage of lesser ordinary half mourning where colors like purple and cream rosettes, bows, belts and streamers along with jet stones or buttons were introduced.
Similar rules applied for the wearing of hats or bonnets. As the mourning progressed, so the hats and bonnets became more trimmed and fancy, whilst veils became shorter until they were eventually removed altogether.” (Source)
It sounds complicated and like tremendous work to remember, amidst the sorrow and grieving, which clothes to and to not wear. However, fashion was an integral facet of the entire process of mourning during this time, and the previously mentioned mementos only catered to the road to healing.
Alongside photos, pendants, and black attire, certain other accessories were sufficient for the healing process. Tear vials also played their part in this somber culture. Lachrymatory predates Christ, as it is referenced in Psalm 56:8, “Thou tellest my wanderings, put thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy Book?” (Lachrymatory Online). However, this tradition reappeared in the 1800’s, carried on through the Civil War, and there are even contemporary bottles still being made. But what was the purpose of this device in the Victorian era? These bottles simply collected tears during the stages of grief. Once the tears evaporated, this indicated an end to the mourning period. Perhaps Maria Clemm Poe would have used one of these vials at the graveside of her dear son-in-law Eddy, or Edgar, himself, use one to collect his woeful tears after the death of his Virginia. Although we do not have one in our collection, there is a high probability that these were relevant to Poe throughout his life. Or, perhaps parchments, such as his letters and manuscripts, collected his tears? We wouldn’t be surprised. Although we do not own one in our collection, there is a connection between Poe, these tear vials, and Richmond’s own Monumental Church, which is worth exploring. Monumental Church is known within the Poe community as having been the church that Edgar and his “foster” parents, John and Frances Allan, attended. To be exact, they maintained pew number 80. But how do these tear vials connect with this church, and thus with Poe? According to Mary Ann Sullivan, who has also provided a photo example of the side on which these can be seen, “The portico [of the church] serves as the memorial with unusual symbols–the lacrimals (tear vials) in the frieze” (Source). The significance of these tear vials carries greater weight, which we will reveal with more context. Not only was this church formerly a Richmond Theater where Edgar’s mother, Eliza, had performed; but, it serves as a memorial and as testimony for a tragic occurrence. On December 26, 1811, the Richmond Theater caught ablaze, engulfing the theater in flames and claiming several lives. Monumental Church was rebuilt in its place to honor these lost lives, and thus Edgar and the Allans would have been exposed to these lacrimal symbols—these symbols perpetually representing eternal mourning for the lives tragically lost.
This ties us into our last object of mourning, which we have a number of examples of at our museum. Mourning stationery, such as the letter seen below, was a custom practiced to indicate to those you were writing to whether or not you were still mourning. Considering the tubercular rage that swept the nation, it wouldn’t be shocking if these were being sold in surplus. What is markedly distinctive about this stationery, as compared to regular stationery, is the black bordering. In this example, Rufus Griswold is writing a letter dated May 1843, five months after the death of his wife, Caroline. This is an appropriate amount of time to still be using this stationery, for, according to Victorian Web online, Victorian mourning stationery was used up to a year after the loss of a loved one.
An example of mourning stationery, from the Poe Museum’s Rufus W. Griswold Collection.
Despite these material objects and mementos, nothing could truly heal a broken heart or replace the corporeal spirit of lost loved ones. However, the condolence these objects and customs brought must not have completely been in vain, for just as some of these customs were being used before Christ, so are other customs still being used today. Perhaps it is time we reincorporate these Victorian mourning customs? Dear reader, would you implement these customs into your personal life?
Charles Babbage’s First Automated Chess Machine on Display in the London Science Museum
Charles Babbage’s First Automated Chess Machine on Display in the London Science Museum
Written By Murray Ellison | November 1st, 2017
Literary Historian, Gerald Kennedywrites, “In Poe’s writing career he worked… as a proofreader, editor, reviewer” of newspapers in Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York—the publishing centers of the United States” (64). These venues exposed his imaginative ideas to the largest possible audience available in the country in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Burton R. Pollin commented in 1973 at the Annual Convention of the Poe Society in Baltimore:
As a journalist, Poe’s attitude about science began to shift from an ambivalent position, as he expressed in his poetry, to a more supportive position. With a reporter’s access to the news, he often wrote enthusiastically about many of the exciting new developments or “treasures” of science. However, it is often hard to determine whether he wrote favorably about science because he was impressed, or if his editors expected him to write positive reports. However, by writing about science as a journalist, he could have it both ways: he could report positively about science, but still keep his personal convictions concealed.
Poe’s first job a journalist began in 1835, when Thomas H. White hired him as a writer for the Southern Literary Messenger (SLM) in Richmond, Virginia. Poe biographer, Arthur Quinn writes that beginning with the December 1835 issue, “Poe did all of the editorial work without credit or title” (251). Burton Polin notes that it was due to Poe’s ability to write attention-grabbing horror and science-fiction stories like, “The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall” (an imaginary balloon voyage to the moon) “that helped to increase the SLM readership from five hundred, when he started, to thirty-five hundred in 1837—the year he resigned” (Collected Writings 62).
Poe’s first science-based journalism article, published in 1836, is about an “automated” chess machine, “Maelzel’s Chess-Player.” Poe demonstrates that he could not support Maelzel’s claims that the “automaton” could reason. He exposed the hoax of the “automated” chess player with creativity, using the tools he would employ in his later detective stories, and classical scientific research to conduct his inquiry. According to Henry Margenau, Francis Bacon first defined the standards of experimental studies in the seventeenth century and they were closely followed by most professional scientists for several centuries. “Bacon offered scientist a fourfold rule of work: observe, measure, explain, and verify” (52). Although Poe often criticized Bacon and his followers, he was committed to the scientific inquiry methods proposed by Bacon in his journalistic reporting…
Poe observes and measures the machine’s capabilities. He rejects Maelzel’s implied claims that the “Player” was an “automaton.” He offers an alternative hypothesis. As Poe writes, “Perhaps no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been the object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. The question of its modus operandi is still undetermined.” He is interested in launching an investigation because “we find everywhere men of mechanical genius…who make no scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a pure machine, unconnected with human agency in its movements” (Complete Works XIV 6). He asks readers to ponder the implications for the future if a machine could calculate without human input. He writes, “There is no analogy, whatever, between the operations of the chess-Player and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage. If we chose to call the former a pure machine, we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond comparison, the most wonderful invention of mankind”(9).
Poe is referring to the prototypes of the “Difference Engine.” The machine was introduced in London between 1791 and 1789 by mechanical engineer Charles Babbage, who has been credited with having been the first inventor of the mechanical computer. His machine could solve complex polynomial equations (Isaacson 18). The Difference Engine No. 2 is a working model that has been restored and re-energized by modern engineers. (The photograph of the machine seen in this article courtesy of www.wikimedia.org). It is currently displayed in The London Science Museum (sciencemuseum.org.uk). Poe acknowledges that Babbage’s machine can compute when a human programmer controls and anticipates the possible outcomes and solves for the expected results. Poe argues that the “Player” would have to be “the most wonderful invention of mankind” to counter the moves of a human opponent. However, he is skeptical that the machine can do what Maelzel claimed.
In the December Poe Blog, read how Poe investigates and exposes the Richmond, Virginia exhibition of “Maelzel Automated Chess Player.”
Selected References
Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.
Kennedy, Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Margenau, Henry. The Scientist. New York: Life Science Library, 1964.
Poe, Edgar A. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume VIII: Early Criticism I. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
—. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
—. The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Eds. Burton R. Pollin, and Joseph V. Ridgeley. New York: Gordian Press, 1997.
Pollin, Burton R. “Creator of Words.” Baltimore: Lecture delivered at the Fifty-first Annual Commemoration of the Edgar A. Poe Society, July 7, 1973. Web. 1 March 2015.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998.
Websites:
www.eapoe.org Published by the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
Drawing of Poe at Ft. Monroe
http://bellybuzz.squarespace.com/storage/post-images/celebrity-veterans/Poe%20at%20Fort%20Monroe.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1306781820853
Written by Murray Ellison
Poe’s early schooling and military training inspire and shape his interest in science. According to Kenneth Silverman, Poe’s secondary education started after his foster parents moved from England to Richmond. In 1821, “Edgar attended the private academy of Joseph H. Clarke,” which served to prepare young gentlemen to obtain “an honorable entrance in any University in the United States.” One of Poe’s classmates wrote a testimonial that he was one of the top students in the class (23). In The Poe Log, Thomas and Jackson list the classes that students typically enrolled in while at the school, including English, Languages (French, Latin, and Greek), Arithmetic, Geometry, Trigonometry, Navigation (using celestial observations), Gunnery and Projectiles, Optics, Geography, Maps and Charts, and Astronomy (41, 48). Continuing a description of Poe’s education and experiences, Silverman writes, In February 1826, Edgar Allan Poe was among the first group of students enrolled at the University of Virginia. School records indicate that he was a bright and dedicated student. However, hefty financial and gambling debts to the University and his classmates left him hopelessly in debt. When his foster father refused to continue paying for Poe’s college expenses, he was forced him to drop out of college in March 1827 (Silverman 29-34).
Major William F. Hecker, the author of Private Perry and MisterPoe, writes that Poe enlisted in the United States Army on May 26, 1827, under the alias of Private Poe. He spent three years as an artilleryman stationed for the longest period at Fort Moultrie, in a coastal area of Sullivan’s Island outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Poe spent much of his Army service learning cannon drill and maintenance. This task needed to be performed by a soldier who had extraordinary expertise and skill in the areas of measurement, logistical planning, and design. Army records indicate that Poe was “the most technically competent artillerist in his battery.” He was assigned to “oversee the ammunition supply of the battery.” He was quickly advanced to an artificer, a technical job concerning the “weights and measures of iron and chemicals” (xxxiv). According to Army records, “Poe was the army’s expert bomb artisan, carefully designing, preparing and constructing inter-connected systems of iron and chemicals with the ultimate goal of explosively destroying his creation (xxxv- xxix). It was extraordinary for that time that Poe was promoted to a Sergeant Major in less than two years after he enlisted (xxix). Hecker concludes that Poe’s four years in the Army exposed him to many disparate subjects such as Cryptography, Geography, Oceanography, and Astronomy (xii). Also, he was able to employ many of his training and experiences in his journalistic and fictional works.
Nineteenth-century science and journalism were undergoing dramatic new advances during and after Poe’s military service during the same the time that he was also embarking on a writing career. These next essays will focus on the ways in which his subsequent journalistic news articles, columns, and essays reflected his and the public’s interest in the emerging scientific trends of the nineteenth century. Much scholarship has been dedicated to Poe’s poetry and fiction, but little to his science narratives written in the style of journalism.
George Daniels, in American Science in the Age of Jackson asserts that many of the most important theories and discoveries of the nineteenth century had already “been well-formulated and new subjects of controversy began to appear.” He argues, “Americans had contributed only minimally to the developing body of world science before the twentieth century” (3-4). This period was more important because it led to new ways for the “popularizers,” to explain science to the public (40). During the 1830’s, American journalism was beginning to reflect many of the significant social and technological changes of the nineteenth century. Improvements in printing technologies helped to produce and distribute newspapers and magazines more efficiently and less expensively to the public than had previously been possible. In Discovering the News, Michael Schudson reports, “The development of railroad transportation and telegraphic communications were the necessary preconditions for a cheap, mass-circulation, news-hungry, and independent press” (32). With these changes, newspapers and magazines suddenly were becoming more prevalent to the American public. Also, their ability to influence public attitudes about important issues, such as science, increased as their circulation rose. In 1830, the country had 650 weeklies and 64 dailies, with an average circulation of 78,000. By 1840, there were 1,141 weeklies and 138 dailies, with an average circulation of 300,000 (14). Schudson argues that early nineteenth-century penny newspapers and journals “invented the modern concept of the news.” In the “1830’s newspapers also began to reflect the activities of an increasingly varied, urban, and middle-class society” (22-23). The public’s interest in science also created the need for a new class of writers who could present scientific information in ways that the public could understand. At the same time, new print media sources, such as newspapers, journals, and encyclopedias offered these writers new powerful methods of communicating about science to the public.
It is, therefore, likely that the increased position of newspapers and magazines in the 1830’s influenced Poe’s decision to publish his works in these new powerful communication mediums. Gerald Kennedywrites, “In Poe’s writing career he worked… as a “proofreader, editor, reviewer” of newspapers in Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York—the publishing centers of the United States” (64). These venues also provided him with the “shelter in some happier star” to bring his imaginative ideas to the largest possible audience. Burton R. Pollin comments, in 1973, at the Annual Convention of the Poe Society in Baltimore, “Poe’s whole life was devoted to language-making. Early in his career as a poet, the niceties and refinements of words engaged his passionate devotion. He became a magazinist, as he honorifically called himself, in an age when the trend was “Magazine-ward.” To “use a Poe coinage; then he produced a stream of tales, reviews, essays, and lectures (www.eapoe.org). As a journalist, Poe’s attitude about science began to shift from an ambivalent to a more supportive position. With a reporter’s access to the news, he often wrote enthusiastically about many of the exciting new developments or “treasures” of science. It is hard to determine whether he wrote favorably about science because he was impressed about his topics, or if his editors expected him to write positive reports. By writing about science as a journalist, he could have it both ways: he could report about science, but still keep his personal convictions concealed. Works from this chapter, unless otherwise indicated, will cite from several volumes of the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by James Harrison. In the next column, I will discuss one of Poe’s first investigative reports for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, “Maazel’s Chess-Player.”
Daniels, George. American Science in the Age of Jackson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Hecker, William F. Private Perry and Mister Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.
Kennedy, Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Poe. Edgar A. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume XIV: Essays and Miscellaneous. Ed. Harrison, James A. New York: T. Crowell, 1902.
Pollin, Burton R. “Creator of Words.” Baltimore: Lecture delivered at the Fifty-first Annual Commemoration of the Edgar A. Poe Society, July 7, 1973. Web. 1 March 2015.
Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books, 1978.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Murray Ellison
About the Author
Dr. Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education from Temple University (1973), a Master’s Degree of Arts in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech (1988). He is married and has three adult daughters. He retired as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. He is the founder and chief editor of this literary blog and is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal. He is Co-Editor of the 2017 Poetry Book, Mystic Verses by Shambhushivananda. He also serves as a board member, volunteer tour guide, and the Facilities Planning Committee Coordinator at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, and writes a monthly column for the Museum website, thepoeblog.org. He has taught literature classes on Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, and F.Scott Fitzgerald (thus far) at the OSHER Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond. He is the organizer and Coördinator of The First Fridays Classic Book Club, and is the co-organizer, along with Rebecca Elizabeth Jones, of the VCU Working Titles Book Club. Contact Murray at ellisonms2@vcu.edu, or leave a Comment at the bottom of any post.
Harry Clark’s Illustration of Poe’s Ship in a Whirlpool
“M.S. Found in a Bottle:” A Look at Poe’s Skepticism of 19th-Century Science, Part II
Murray Ellison | August 31, 2017
By being unobserved, the unnamed narrator of Poe’s, “M.S. Found in a Bottle” is looking at the relics of science on the ship he is standing on as an outsider. He concludes that much of nineteenth-century science is outdated and largely based on theories of misguided scientists like Francis Bacon and Symmes. He describes the ship as having a “severely simple bow and antiquated stern,” that reminds him of “an unaccountable memory of old foreign chronicles and ages long ago.” The captain’s “gray hairs are records of the past, and his grayer eyes are Sybils of the future. A Sybil is a witch or a harbinger of dark and dangerous times. The narrator observes that the “cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron clasped folios, moldering instruments of science and obsolete long-forgotten charts” (144). Poe believed that the tools of nineteenth-century science could not chart a course to the future and that the captain is sailing to an unknown destination and using outdated maps. The narrator’s assumptions about the inadequacies of the ship are confirmed as the journey reaches the frightening abyss Symmes imagined at the South Pole. Poe exploits and, perhaps satirizes Symmes’s theories and the fears that readers associated with such beliefs when the narrator encounters the Pole’s vortex:
Oh, horror upon horror!—the ice opens up to the right, and to the left, and suddenly we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric circles, round and round, the borders of a gigantic amphitheater, the summit of those walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. But little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny! The circles grow small—we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool—amid a roaring… and thundering of ocean and of the tempest, the ship is quivering—oh God! And—going down (146).
Poe uses the phrase, “whirling dizzily,” to show that those who believe in the systems of nineteenth-century science will soon be whirling around and too dizzy to understand what is happening when new technologies replace their antiquated belief systems. The dark and distant walls of the ship represent the barriers that are blocking progress to a more enlightened future. He regrets that, by associating with this ship and these antiquated ideas, he will have little time to “ponder about his destiny.”
Poe’s narrative flaunts the distinctions between the uncertainties and dangers of nineteenth-century discoveries, as well as his obsessions with death. He uses the term, “immense concentric circles” to mock the “Concentric Circles” theory. The antiquated approaches that scientists have thus far trusted, he suggests, will be inundated by the roaring, “bellowing, and thundering of the ocean and tempest.” The foundations that they have based their beliefs on are “quivering.” Poe’s use of the word, “God,” juxtaposed with “going down,” suggests that he believed that organized religion is also going down along with the antiquated beliefs of nineteenth-century science. However, this usage also indicates that Poe believed in a Supreme Being. The term “whirling dizzily” also indicates that he realized that the Universe is being controlled by a force greater than humans can ever control. As the ship is sucked into the Pole, the narrator thrusts his journal into the sea— hopefully for readers of the future to discover. Although this short story is Poe’s first published work, it foreshadows his most comprehensive views about science and the future of the Universe in his final work, Eureka: A Prose Poem.
Murray Ellison
About The Author
Dr. Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education from Temple University (1973), a Master’s Degree of Arts in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech (1988). He is married and has three adult daughters. He retired as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. He is the founder and chief editor of this literary blog and is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal. He is the Co-Editor of the 2016 book of poetry, Mystic Verses, by Shambhushivananda. He also serves as a board member, volunteer tour guide, poetry judge, and Facilities Planning Committee Coordinator at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia. He teaches literature classes at the OSHER, Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond; is the organizer and coordinator of The First Fridays Classic Book Club; and is co-founder and organizer, along with Rebecca Elizabeth Jones, of the VCU English Alumni, Working Titles Book Club. Contact Murray at ellisonms2@vcu.edu.
Works Cited
Gewirtz, Isaac. Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul, Ed. New York: New York Public Library, 2013.
Levine, Stuart and Susan F. Edgar Allan Poe: Eureka. Eds. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2004.
Poe, Edgar A.. Tales and Sketches, 1831-1849. Ed. Thomas O. Mabbott. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
Poe, Harry Lee. Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012.
Pollin, Burton R. “Creator of Words.” Baltimore: Lecture delivered at the Fifty-first Annual Commemoration of the Edgar A. Poe Society, July 7, 1973.
Seaborn, Captain Adam (pseudonym Captain John Symmes). Symzonia-a Voyage of Discovery. New York: Printed by J. Seymour, 1820.
Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed. The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.
For those unfamiliar with the Mock Trial, it’s our most popular offering for school groups and it works really well for adults, too! We take Poe’s great story “The Tell-Tale Heart” and treat it as though it were testimony from a murderer on trial in a courtroom. Before we read the story, we “cast” several roles: judge, prosecuting attorney, defense attorney and jury foreman. Everyone else is on the jury!
How Does It Work?
The judge calls the court to order and the defendant (a Poe staffer, typically the Education Coordinator) takes the stand. Poe’s story serves as his testimony. Then the lawyers take turns cross-examining the defendant–the prosecutor wants to show that the defendant is sane and thus responsible for his actions, so that he can be found guilty. The defense attorney wants to show that the defendant is insane and thus not responsible for his actions. Note that this means that the defendant is often at odds with his own lawyer, since the defendant has no doubt that he is perfectly sane!
The lawyers then present their closing arguments to the jury, which then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. The judge gets to decide what happens to the defendant based on the verdict!
Hittin’ The Road!
Our Education Coordinator will be taking the Mock Trial on the road to teachers from Henrico County at the end of the month–teachers from all over Henrico will gather at Varina High School to do the Mock Trial before school starts for the year.
Interested in bringing your group to the Poe Museum for a tour, Mock Trial, or more?
Portion of Poe's Hair from Collection of John Reznikoff.
Portion of Poe’s Hair from Collection of John Reznikoff.
From June 22 until September 17, 2017, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia will feature Investigating History: Testing Edgar Allan Poe’s Hair, a groundbreaking new exhibit examining the latest scientific testing of the nineteenth century author Edgar Allan Poe’s hair by University of Virginia scientist Stephen Macko. These tests provide valuable clues to the mystery surrounding Poe’s final days and sudden, unexplained death at the age of forty. The exhibit brings together more samples of Poe’s hair than have been seen in the same place since they were still on Poe’s head back in 1849. Other hair samples on display include a lock of Poe’s wife Virginia Clemm Poe’s hair as well as a lock of hair from Poe’s friend Eliza White, the subject of Poe’s poem “To Eliza.”
On Thursday, August 24 from 6-9 p.m. the Poe Museum will celebrate this important exhibit with an Unhappy Hourfeaturing “The Tell-Tale Hair,” a short talk by Stephen “The Hair Doctor” Macko, the University of Virginia scientist who performed the latest analysis of Poe’s hair.
Stephen Macko is a Professor of Isotope and Organic Geochemistry in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. He has authored over 300 refereed research papers and books including the singular work in the field, Organic Geochemistry. He was elected a Fellow of the Geochemical Society and of the European Association of Geochemistry and was a Corresponding Editor for EOS, the publication of the American Geophysical Union. He recently held the position of Program Officer for Geobiology and Low Temperature Geochemistry at the US National Science Foundation.
His research includes studies on chemosynthesis at cold seeps and hydrothermal vents using the Johnson Sea Link and Alvin submersibles; identifying geochemical biomarkers of climate change in high Arctic marine sediments and in soils of sub-Saharan Africa. He has been a scientist or chief scientist on numerous oceanographic expeditions, being involved in five legs of the Ocean Drilling Program including the Antarctic Legs 113 and 119 and the sub-Arctic Leg 105 and in dives to depths of over 500m in the submersible Johnson Sea Link. He was a principal research scientist on the High Arctic Canadian Ice Island during five field seasons. He has been long been involved with oil spill assessment. His laboratory has been featured on the Discovery and National Geographic television channels (The Moche Murder Mystery, Ultimate Guide to Mummies), the independent Peabody Award winning film, King Corn, as well internationally, including the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS, Korea), Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC, Yeosu, Korea), Ríkisútvarpið Public Television (RUV, Reykjavik, Iceland) and Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK).
