Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond:: The Raven in the River City

by Christopher P. Semtner

Overview

Acclaimed as one of America's most innovative authors and the inventor of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe and his works are celebrated around the world. Yet the true story of Poe's time in Richmond, Virginia, is every bit as strange and exciting as his fiction.
Poe spent nearly a third of his life in Richmond. It was here that he matched wits with a chess-playing robot, set the record for swimming against the current in the James River, challenged a rival editor to a duel and first revealed his talent for practical jokes. Join Christopher P. Semtner, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, as he reveals previously unpublished photographs and little-known source material to shed new light on how the mystery, madness and tragedy that Poe encountered during his Richmond years forever shaped his renowned fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609496074
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	04/08/2012
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,019,622
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

The curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, Christopher Semtner has served as author, coauthor or editor of eight books on Poe. He has created museum exhibits on "Poe in the Comics," "Poe's Mysterious Death" and "Poe in the Movies." The New York Times called the exhibit he curated for the Library of Virginia, "Poe: Man, Myth or Monster," "provocative" and "a playful, robust exhibit." Semtner regularly speaks on Poe at schools and libraries and recently appeared in the BBC documentary Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death, and Women. In addition to his museum work, Semtner is an artist whose paintings have entered public collections, including those of the Poe House of Baltimore and the University of Maryland. His photography has appeared in the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph and a number of other publications. He lives in Bon Air, Virginia, with three cats who allow him and his wife to share a house with them.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction 9

1 Eliza Poe's Dark Secret 13

2 The Disappearance of David Poe 18

3 The Humane Heart 23

4 A Young Prince 28

5 Poe the Prankster 33

6 The Swimming Match 36

7 To Helen 40

8 Poe and the Hero 44

9 Moldavia 49

10 Elmira 54

11 The Death of John Man 59

12 Southern Literary Messenger 62

13 Poe versus the Robot 68

14 Dancing with Poe 71

15 Poe's Bride 74

16 The Duel 81

17 Eureka! 85

18 The Widow 89

19 Poe's Last Reading 92

20 The Last Engagement 97

21 Poe's Mysterious Death 104

22 A Poet's Trunk 109

23 The Poe Shrine 115

Bibliography 123

Index 125

About the Author 127