Every once in a while, a discovery sheds new light on history bringing past events more clearly into view. While historians have preserved descriptions of Edgar Allan Poe's wedding to his thirteen year old cousin Virginia, no artifacts of the event seem to have survived--until now. Tucked away in private collections for nearly 180 years, two fragments of Virginia Poe's wedding dress have come to light and will be on display at the Poe Museum in Richmond this summer.
Long a source of public fascination, Poe's "child-bride" Virginia Poe has been the subject of at least two novels, and she has ...
Poe's life
To Fanny
While strolling through the world’s finest collection of Poeana, visitors to the Poe Museum may be intrigued by a collection of items belonging not to the master of the macabre, but to a group of his acquaintances. A brimming manila folder, housed in the Valentine Museum archives, has kindly taken it upon itself to give these acquaintances the collective and slightly euphemistic title: “Women He Knew.” Items belonging to Edgar Allan Poe’s various paramours and female family members truly are gems within the museum’s already impressive collection. After all, we cannot fully understand ...
Love Is in the Air
Poe was known for being quite the ladies' man in his day. Women including Sarah Helen Whitman, Frances Sargent Osgood, Sarah Elmira Royster, Mary Starr, and especially his wife, were known for having romantic feelings for the writer. He did not woo only these women, however. Continue reading to find out who else Poe left swooning, as well as letters displaying their adoration, if not infatuation, with him.
If you recall a previous blog post, Elizabeth Ellet was notorious for revealing Osgood and Poe's correspondence, causing a publicity scandal and the end of their friendship (at least, in the ...
Edgar Allan Poe Hoax Now on Display at Poe Museum
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia recently acquired a rare 1846 British pamphlet Mesmerism in Articulo Mortis, in which Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional story of mesmerizing the dead, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,”(1845) is reprinted as a true account for a London audience. The Poe Museum’s new acquisition is a gift from Poe collector and Poe Museum trustee Susan Jaffe Tane. This important piece has appeared in exhibits at the Poe Museum in 1997 and the Grolier Club in New York in 2014. The book retains its original paper cover and is in fine condition. It is now on display ...