At long last, here are the photos taken at the Poe Photo Booth at the Poe Museum’s May 2015 Unhappy Hour. If you haven’t been to an Unhappy Hour this year, be sure not to miss the October 22 Unhappy Hour. More pictures are on the way.
Tag: events
Illustration for the 1843 first printing of “The Gold-Bug”
Poe was much more than the Master of the Macabre. He was also the Master of Mystery, the inventor of detective fiction, and an avid cryptographer who introduced puzzles and codes into his poems and short stories. His short story “The Gold-Bug” features an encrypted treasure map and a search for clues and codes that set the standard for such popular films as National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code. This spring the Poe Museum planted a new Gold-Bug Garden modeled after this setting of this important story. In honor of the opening of the new Gold-Bug Garden at the Poe Museum in Richmond, on Tuesday, June 23 at 6 p.m., Poe scholar Richard Kopley will deliver “Decoding the Gold-Bug,” a talk about Edgar Allan Poe’s influential treasure hunt mystery “The Gold-Bug.” Admission is free.
Richard KopleyAbout Richard Kopley:
Richard Kopley is Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at Penn State DuBois. He is the author of Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin Mysteries, as well as numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on Poe. He is the editor of Poe’s Pym: Critical Explorations and the co-editor, with Jana Argersinger, of Poe Writing, Writing Poe. He has spoken on Poe widely in the United States, and he has given papers on Poe in Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, and (by DVD) Japan.. He is a former president of the Poe Studies Association, organizer of several Poe conferences, co-organizer of the recent Fourth International Edgar Allan Poe Conference in New York City, and a member of the program committee for the next international Poe-Hawthorne Conference, scheduled for June 21-24, 2018, in Kyoto, Japan.
About the Poe Museum’s Gold-Bug Garden:
Designed by Riely and Associates, the firm that restored the gardens at the Virginia Executive Mansion, Monticello, and the University of Virginia, the Poe Museum’s Gold-Bug Garden recreates the Low Country setting of “The Gold-Bug” with an unusual combination of palms, umbrella plants, fatsia, and banana shrubs. This garden is only one stage in the Garden Club of Virginia’s restoration of the Poe Museum’s gardens, which date back to 1922.
On April 23, the Poe Museum hosted its first Unhappy Hour of 2015 with live music by Tim Harding Group and fine food by Casa del Barco. The theme of the evening was Poe’s early poem “Israfel,” and there was a reading of the poem in the Museum’s Enchanted Garden along with the opening of the new exhibit Painting the Enchanted Garden 2. In case you missed it, here are some photos taken that evening. Check here for the complete Unhappy Hour schedule.
Thanks to Casa del Barco for providing some great food for the evening.
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum turned ninety-three this week. The above photograph was taken at the opening ceremony, which featured distinguished guests, readings of original Poe letters and manuscripts, and a tea party. Below is the program for the event, which was held on April 26-28, 1922.
In a departure from the darkness and mystery usually associated with the works of author Edgar Allan Poe, the Poe Museum in Richmond will feature an exhibit celebrating the beauty of nature and gardens. From April 23 until June 21, 2015, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond will host Painting the Enchanted Garden 2, its second annual exhibition of new paintings, drawings, and photographs of its legendary Enchanted Garden. In honor of the current restoration of this ninety-three year old landmark by the Garden Club of Virginia, artists were challenged to visit the garden beginning in March in order to produce new work to display in time for the exhibit opening at 6 p.m. on April 23. The artists who took up the challenge in order to participate in the exhibit are David Bromley, Clarise Carnahan, Kailee Cross, Bill Dompke, Kim Hall, Linda Hollett, Chris Ludke, and Dwight M. Paulett.
The Poe Museum’s Enchanted Garden was based on a description of Paradise in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “To One in Paradise.” The flowers, trees, and shrubs planted there are ones named in Poe’s poems and short stories. Even the paving stones, benches, and bricks were salvaged from buildings in which Poe lived or worked in Richmond and New York. Over the past nine decades, the Enchanted Garden has inspired poems, novels, and visual art from generations of artists. It has even inspired a replica garden in South Carolina.
According to Poe Museum Curator Chris Semtner, “Since the garden was inspired by Poe’s writing, it is fitting that the garden continues to inspire new artists and authors. This exhibit is a fitting document of that legacy of inspiration.”
The paintings in this exhibit will be for sale, and proceeds from the sale benefit the Poe Museum’s educational programs.
Over nine hundred people gathered at the Poe Museum for its annual Poe Birthday Bash, which featured twelve hours of entertainment and tours. One of the days highlights was the Poe Birthday Cake (pictured above). Below is a shot the people lining up for a slice of cake.
Kids enjoyed fun and games throughout the day. Here is a photo of the craft table staffed by historical interpreter Debbie Phillips, dressed as Poe’s last fiancée Elmira Royster Shelton.
One little girl came dressed as a raven.
Some kids enjoyed the model of Poe’s Richmond.
Some liked the Richard Corben exhibit.
Others just liked the hitching post.
Adults also got into the act by making their own Poe mustaches.
Three bands performed, including The Embalmers.
Actors Michael Fawcett, Davide Michero, Dean Knight, and Debbie Phillips performed Poe’s works including “The Raven,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “Berenice.”
Guests also enjoyed walking tours of Poe sites in the neighborhood. Here is one of the groups visiting the Church Hill Overlook.
Here they are at St. John’s Church.
The Sisters in Crime discussed the art of mystery writing.
Professor M. Thomas Inge from Randolph-Macon College gave an interesting presentation about the Poe illustrations of Richard Corben, whose work is now on display in the Poe Museum’s Exhibit Building.
Poe’s last fiancée returned from the dead to give a performance and tour of the sites she and Edgar used to visit together.
The evening culminated with the midnight toast to Poe in the Poe Shrine.
The Poe Museum would like to thank everyone who joined us for Poe’s Birthday Bash, and we look forward to seeing everybody back here next year.
From January 17 until April 19, 2015, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia will host Reimagining Poe: The Poe Illustrations of Richard Corben a major exhibit surveying forty years of illustrations to Poe’s works by Eisner Award-winning artist Richard Corben. This, the first retrospective of Corben’s Poe illustrations, will feature several original drawings from the artist’s personal collection. The exhibit will open with a lecture about Corben’s illustrations by Randolph Macon College professor M. Thomas Inge on January 17 at 5p.m. The exhibit opening and lecture will be part of the Poe Museum’s annual Poe Birthday Bash, the world’s largest celebration devoted to the nineteenth century author’s birthday.
Richard Corben (born 1940) is a comic book artist and illustrator named Corben began his career in animation before turning to underground comics. In 1976 he adapted a Robert E. Howard story into what is considered the first graphic novel, Bloodstar. He is best known for his comics appearing in Heavy Metal magazine. His illustrious career has included work in album covers and movie posters, collaboration on a graphic novel with rock musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie, and an award-winning short film Neverwhere. He is the winner of the 2009 Spectrum Grand Master Award, and he was elected to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012.
For over forty years, Corben has established himself as one of the most extraordinary illustrators of Poe’s works. His Edgar Allan Poe adaptations have appeared on the pages of the comic books Creepy, Edgar Allan Poe’s Haunt of Horror, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead. Among his dozens of comic book adaptations of Poe’s tales and poems are popular favorites like “The Raven” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” as well as little known classics like “Alone” and “Israfel.” Not content with literal illustrations of Poe’s words, Corben’s exquisite artwork is often paired with his own unusual and innovative reinventions of the stories. In the introduction to Corben’s latest collection of Poe adaptations, Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead, Dr. M. Thomas Inge states, “Corben has proven to be the most acute and creative interpreter of Poe in comics history.”
Edgar Allan Poe is the internationally influential author of such tales of “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat.” He is credited with inventing the mystery genre as well as with pioneering both the modern horror story and science fiction. Poe died under mysterious circumstances at the age of forty. Although much of his life is known through contemporary documents, some areas of his life remain shrouded in mystery.
Opened in 1922, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum of Richmond is the world’s finest collection of Edgar Allan Poe artifacts and memorabilia. The five-building complex features permanent exhibits of Poe’s manuscripts, personal items, clothing, and a lock of the author’s hair. The Poe Museum’s mission is to interpret the life and influence of Edgar Allan Poe for a global audience. Edgar Allan Poe is America’s first internationally influential author, the inventor of the detective story, and the forerunner of science fiction; but he primarily considered himself a poet. His poems “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Bells” are classics of world literature.
Here are some photos taken during Halloween Weekend at the Poe Museum.
Victoria and Raven Price Victoria Price signing books Vincent Price Signature Wine CollectionBring the whole family to the Poe Museum on Friday, December 5 to discover what Christmas was like in Poe’s time. Singer and historical interpreter Debbie Phillips will perform the traditional Christmas songs Poe would have enjoyed. When not listening to music, you can enjoy hot drinks, make traditional crafts, and see the illumination of the Poe Museum’s Enchanted Garden. Don’t forget to see the new Raven Room and the Mesmerized exhibit before it closes. Admission is free. For more information, call the Poe Museum at 804-648-5523.
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Christmas in Poe’s Time
Every year, the Poe Museum celebrates the holiday season with the Poe Illumination in which visitors can experience Victorian Christmas music and crafts that Edgar Allan Poe himself would have enjoyed. In fact, the people in Poe’s time were largely responsible for shaping the way Americans celebrate Christmas today. Without them, Christmas would lack poinsettias, mistletoe, and the names of Santa’s flying reindeer. You might be surprised to discover some of the ways the holidays evolved during Poe’s lifetime (1809-1849).
Christmas Comes to America
Christmas was one of the English holidays many Americans chose not to observe immediately after the Revolution because Americans wanted to break away from English traditions, but European immigrants brought their various traditions of the rowdy, licentious winter holiday with them. In Northern Europe, this was traditionally a twelve-night party at the end of harvest. In the early days, people ate well during this time because they had to slaughter some of their animals rather than try to feed them all winter. By the 1820s, the immigrants and lower classes in urban America still got rowdy at Christmas time and even rioted. In 1828, the New York City Council established its police force after an especially rowdy Christmas season, so the high Christmas crime rate is the reason we have the NYPD.
Christmas in Popular Culture
While living in England in 1821, America’s most popular writer Washington Irving wrote the serialized novel Bracebridge Hall about life in an English manor house including descriptions of an English Christmas. This helped expose the average American to English Christmas traditions. In 1823, the New York theologian Clement Clarke Moore wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which we now call “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and it became a hit. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol,” which was popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Christmas Tree
The Germans had long decorated evergreens as part of winter celebrations. In 1840 Victoria and her German cousin Albert married, and he brought German Christmas traditions with him to England. In 1846, the London Illustrated News carried a picture of a Christmas tree in Victoria’s home, and that started the fad in both England and America. People decorated trees with lemon slices, pine cones, and other stuff they could find. They also put Christmas presents in the trees. When presents started getting too big, we had to put them under the tree.
Poinsettias
In 1825, Joel R. Poinsett, America’s ambassador to Mexico, brought to the United States a green and red flower from Mexico, where it had already been a part of celebrations. Its association with Christmas began in the 16th century in Mexico where there is a legend about a girl too poor to get a present for Jesus’s birthday. An angel told her to pick some weeds, so she picked them and put them in front of the altar, where they sprouted red blossoms.
Christmas Cards
In 1843 in England J.C. Horsely printed the first Christmas card.
Mistletoe
Mistletoe is carryover from earlier, rowdy Christmas. Its presence at Victorian celebrations allowed proper people to engage in behavior that would have been otherwise unacceptable.
Protestants started attending Christmas services in Catholic and Episcopal churches until other denominations came around.
Santa Claus
The modern Santa Claus developed in America. The Dutch brought traditions of St. Nicolas to the New World. In 1823, the Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Churchan Episcopal minister in New York, Clement Clarke Moore, wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (better known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”) to entertain his children. He came up with the names of the reindeer and the idea of Santa coming down the chimney. At first, he didn’t reveal his authorship because the church didn’t approve of secular Christmas celebrations—especially from someone teaching at their seminary—but he later confessed. Even after the poem, people still didn’t know what Santa looked like, so depictions of him gave him the appearance of anything from an elf to a skinny old man. In 1863, Thomas Nast, a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly, was the first to draw the modern Santa, and he made modeled Santa after a robber baron.
Christmas Eve Services
When Christmas started getting popular in America, most American Protestant churches, which didn’t care much for saints or feast days, did not want to celebrate the winter carnival, so members of their congregations started attending Christmas Eve services at Catholic and Episcopal churches until the others broke down and decided to get in on the action. Of course, some Protestant denominations still don’t celebrate Christmas.
Poe and Christmas
Poe experienced Christmas in a variety of different ways throughout his life. Coming from England, Poe’s mother would have known the English Christmas traditions. Although he owned a pew in Richmond’s Monumental Episcopal Church, Poe’s Scottish-born foster father John Allan was likely either a Presbyterian or a free thinker, but he did observe the holiday by spending it with friends. Within a few weeks of moving in with the Allans, the two-year-old Poe joined them in taking a Christmas vacation to his foster parents’ friend’s plantation on Turkey Island. Incidentally, this is why the Allans weren’t in the Richmond Theater the night it burned—taking with it the lives of seventy-two prominent Richmonders. Learn more about the Richmond Theater Fire here.
Poe was with the Allans in England for five years (1815-1820), so he would have seen English Christmases first-hand during that time. On December 25, 1818 Allan received a bill for Poe’s tuition and expenses at the Manor House School. At the end of the bill, there is a note that the vacation will terminate on January 25, so it appears Poe was on Christmas vacation from this boarding school for about a month. Returning to Richmond in 1820, the Allans spent Christmas that year with the Ellis family at their home at Second and Franklin Streets.
As an adult, Poe, like a lot of people, worked on Christmas Day, so there are some business letters written by him dated December 25. Christmas was also a good time for Poe to sell his stories to gift books. In the 1830s, American publishers started issuing deluxe gift books each year around Christmas. Poe contributed to several installments (1836, 1840, 1842, 1843, 1845) of the most popular of these, The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present. He also contributed to The Baltimore Book: A Christmas and New Year’s Present in 1838, The Opal in 1844 and 1845, The Missionary Memorial in 1846, and the May Flower in 1846. The Irving Offering and the American Keepsake published his works immediately after his death.
On Christmas Eve 1847, Poe attended a church service with his nurse Marie Louise Shew and another lady to a midnight service conducted by Reverend William Augustus Muhlenberg. (She had been Virginia’s nurse before Virginia died in January of that year.) Mrs. Shew recalls:
He [Poe] went with us, followed the service like a “churchman”, looking directly towards the chancel, and holding one side of my prayer book, sang the psalms with us, and to my astonishment struck up a tenor to our sopranos and, got along nicely during the first part of the sermon, which was on the subject of the sympathies of our Lord, to our wants. The passage being often repeated, “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He begged me to stay quiet that he would wait for me outside, and he rushed out, too excited to stay. I knew he would not leave us to return home alone, (altho’ my friend thought it doubtful), and so after the sermon as I began to feel anxious (as we were in a strange church) I looked back and saw his pale face, and as the congregation rose to sing the Hymn, “Jesus Saviour of my soul,” he appeared at my side, and sang the Hymn, without looking at the book, in a fine clear tenor. . . . I did not dare to ask him why he left, but he mentioned after we got home, that the subject “was marvelously handled, and ought to have melted many hard hearts” and ever after this he never passed Doctor Muhlenbergs 20th St. Free Church without going in (letter to J. H. Ingram, ca. 15 April 1875, Miller [1977], pp. 132-33).
A year later, in 1848, Poe intended to marry the Providence, Rhode Island poet Sarah Helen Whitman on Christmas Day, which was on a Monday, but she broke off the engagement on December 23. This would be Poe’s last Christmas. He died October 7, 1849.
As you celebrate the holidays this year, look out for some of the traditions Poe would have known that are still observed today. If you are going to be in Richmond, be sure to visit the Poe Museum’s Poe Illumination on December 5 from 6-9p.m.
On October 23, the Poe Museum celebrated its last Unhappy Hour of 2014 with live music by the Blue and the Grey in addition to a performance of “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.” Some of the attendees got into the spirit of things by having their pictures taken in our photo booth. Here are the results.
We hope to see you all in April for the next Unhappy Hour.
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The Raven Room Reopens
After more than a decade, the Poe Museum reopened its Raven Room last Halloween night in a new gallery space. The exhibit features the Raven illustrations of James Carling, who attempted to illustrate the entire poem line-by-line. Since the Poe Museum first acquired the original artwork in the 1930s, the drawings were on continuous display in a specially devoted gallery known as the Raven Room.
At first, the Raven Room was located in the Museum’s Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building (pictured above), but it was later moved to a blood-red room on the second floor of the Tea House (now known as the Exhibits Building). After the original artwork was replaced with reproductions in the 1970s, the Raven Room stayed on exhibit until about 2003 when it was replaced by a changing exhibit gallery.
This year, the Museum converted a storage area into a new Raven Room (pictured above) complete with it famously red walls. Much as they were in the earlier incarnations of the exhibit, the drawings are hung side-by-side around the room so that visitors may follow the illustrations chronologically. In this installation, however, only ten drawings at a time will be displayed. In this way, seventy-five percent of the precious artworks will be protected from the light at any given time. This measure will help ensure they survive for future generations to enjoy.
The complete set of illustrations will soon be available in a book (pictured below) to be released in the near future. Check our online store for the latest updates.
This exhibit and the accompanying book were made possible by the generous support of Dr. George W. Poe Jr., Avery Brooks, Mark Cummins, Cecelia Faigin, Rolf-Thomas Happe, Lynda Locke, Michael O’Farrell, John O’Sullivan, Kay Purcell , Ashley Woessner, and Kristopher Woofter.