Even after ninety years, the Poe Museum’s collection continues to grow. Here are a few of the recent acquisitions made possible by the Poe Museum’s friends.
First Printing of “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Almost everyone has read Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story of madness and murder, but this week the Poe Museum in Richmond finally acquired the coveted first printing of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The story first appeared in the inaugural issue (January 1843) of the Boston magazine The Pioneer, edited by poet James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). Since only three issues were published before ...
exhibits
See “The Masque of the Red Death” in Stunning Stained Glass
The Poe Museum is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of new artwork inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death.” The show will open on October 7 and run through December 31. In honor of the show, the Poe Museum will host a special “Masque of the Red Death” Unhappy Hour on October 25 from 6-9 P.M. The highlight of the exhibit will be a stained glass window (pictured above) created by award-winning Wisconsin glass artist David Fode. Earlier this year, Fode displayed the piece at the American Glass Guild’s juried members’ exhibit in Pittsburg. David Fode was ...
Preview of One of the Letters from Upcoming Exhibit
One of the rarely seen Poe letters to be exhibited starting this April in the Poe Museum’s new exhibit From Poe’s Quill is this one Poe wrote to Edward Valentine. The letter still belongs to a descendant of Edward Valentine and is rarely available to public inspection. Visitors to the exhibit will be among the few who have had a chance to see it.
Edward Valentine was the cousin of Edgar Allan Poe’s foster mother Frances Keeling Valentine Allan. When Poe was first taken in by the Allans, Valentine became fond of the two-year-old and took him on rides through the country. Valentine was ...
Histories of the Old Stone House
By the time the Poe Museum opened in 1922, its first building, the Old Stone House, was already a Richmond landmark. Over the years, the Poe Museum has received a number of articles related to the history of the building. A great deal has been written about the modest little house, and some of it might actually be true. The house was certainly never Washington's Headquarters, as the booklet below relates; and Patrick Henry never used it as his office. Powhatan never lived here, either. We do, however, own a photograph of the Wheelbarrow Man (mentioned in the 1894 article below), but we can ...