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Edgar Allan Poe Museum

The Poe Museum

Richmond, VA

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history

The Poe & Science Series

December 11, 2017

Poe Exposes Maelzel's Automated Chess Player, Part II Murray Ellison | Dec. 2nd, 2017 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 ...

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Filed Under: The Poe Museum Blog Tagged With: history, science

Edgar Allan Poe and the Culture of Mourning

November 11, 2017

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 ...

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Filed Under: The Poe Museum Blog Tagged With: history, Poe's life

Poe’s Investigations of a 19th-Century Automated Chess Machine – Part I

November 1, 2017

Charles Babbage’s First Automated Chess Machine on Display in the London Science Museum Written By Murray Ellison  |  November 1st, 2017 Literary Historian, Gerald Kennedy writes, “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 ...

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Filed Under: The Poe Museum Blog Tagged With: history, science

Poe’s Early Schooling and Interest in Science

October 5, 2017

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 ...

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Filed Under: The Poe Museum Blog Tagged With: history, Poe's life, science

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