Poe is on the move! After nearly six decades sitting across the street from the home of Poe’s first great love and muse, Richmond’s statue of Edgar Allan Poe has been displaced to make room for some newer sculptures. This is only the latest in many twists and turns in the life of Virginia’s first public Poe statue.
It all began in 1906, when a small band of writers, historians, and artists proposed the installation of a statue of Poe in the author’s hometown. Lack of funding—and a general lack of public enthusiasm—soon brought their efforts to an end. By then, Richmond was already lagging ...
Richmond
The Mysterious Disappearing Poe Bust
One crisp Sunday afternoon in October 1987, tour guide Tom Rowe led a group of students across the Poe Museum’s garden to show them the treasure sitting on the pedestal in the Poe Shrine. Pointing toward the shadow recesses of the brick pergola, he announced, “And here’s the bust of Poe made by Edmond T. Quinn.”
Only after a couple kids asked, “What bust?” did Tom take a second look at the empty pedestal. The Poe Museum’s priceless sculpture was missing.
Sculpted in 1908 by Edmond Thomas Quinn (1868-1929), the white plaster bust was the original model for a bronze copy unveiled in New York ...
Salvador Dali Meets the Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe
May 11 marks the 112th birthday of one of the twentieth century’s most important artists, Salvador Dalí. What does the great Spanish Surrealist painter Dalí have to do with Edgar Allan Poe? More than you might think.
Dalí mentions Poe at the beginning and the end of his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. In the first anecdote, Dalí describes the cultural climate in Paris in the 1930s and how everyone was reading Poe and Marie Bonaparte’s new psychoanalytical take of Poe’s work. Bonaparte’s search for hidden Freudian meanings in Poe’s work appealed to Dalí and the Surrealists, ...
Poe Museum Presents Major New Poe Film
This Halloween night at 6 p.m. the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia will premiere the new animated Poe adaptation Extraordinary Tales featuring the voice talents of film legends Christopher Lee (in one of his very last roles), Roger Corman (director of series of Poe films), Guillermo del Toro (director of Crimson Peak and Pan's Labyrinth) and Bela Lugosi (the original Dracula from the 1931 film of that name). The film, directed by Raul Garcia, features adaptations of five of Poe's greatest short stories. Click here to see a preview of the film.
Admission is just five dollars. The ...
