The public’s fascination with crime and violence existed long before today’s cop shows and horror movies. Even in Edgar Allan Poe’s time, readers could not get enough true tales of murder and madness. Ample evidence of this fact is to be found in a curious little volume in the Poe Museum’s collection.
The Poe Museum’s next Object of the Month is The Tragic Almanack for 1843, published in 1842 by the New York Sun. Like many popular almanacs, this annual publication contains astronomical information, the dates of religious holidays, and weather predictions. Unlike those other almanacs, this ...
exhibits
New Exhibit Examines Poe’s Secret Code
Armies have been sending sensitive information through encoded messages for thousands of years to protect that information from falling into enemy hands, but it was Edgar Allan Poe who popularized the use of these cryptograms as a form of entertainment and in fiction with his story “The Gold-Bug.” Even before the publication of this trailblazing treasure-hunt mystery, Poe was so interested in cryptograms that he challenged the readers of his magazine to send him codes to solve. From September 24 until December 31, the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia will explore Poe’s love of cryptography in ...
Poe Museum’s Object of the Month May Hold Clue to Poe’s Mysterious Death
It is one of the stars of the Poe Museum. It has traveled the world and encountered both a U.S. president and the Queen of England. Millions of people, in fact, have seen this simple wooden walking stick. Millions more have read about it in various biographies and novels about Poe.
About thirty-six inches long, the cane is made of dark wood with a silver tip inscribed “Poe.” A hole through the shaft once held a leather strap the user would loop around the user’s wrist. This humble piece is remarkable not only because it was once owned by Edgar Allan Poe but because it might be a clue to Poe’s ...
Poe Museum Exhibit Examines One of Mankind’s Greatest Fears
To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.
~Edgar A. Poe, “The Premature Burial”
From August 27 until October 18, 2015, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond will host Buried Alive, an exhibit exploring the theme of premature burial in Poe’s works. Poe called the subject of being buried alive, “the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” Characters are entombed alive in Poe’s tales “Berenice,” “The Premature Burial,” “Loss of Breath,” “The Cask of ...