That Was Quick

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It happened when I wasn’t looking.  If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I’ve been in Boston since Friday for the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting.  This is a work event for me and I’m pretty much in meetings from 8:30 (or earlier) to 5:30 (or later) each day.  I always come home with “conference voice”—I can barely speak until Thanksgiving.  In any case, while I was distracted in Boston this blog slipped past a milestone.  At some point over the weekend I surpassed a million hits.  Given how rare large numbers are in my life, this is kind of a big deal for me.  I know websites that get attention and critical acclaim hit the million mark within months, or even weeks.  Still, at the ripe old age of sixteen, I’ll take it.  And I’m very grateful to any and all of you who’ve taken a moment to read my musings over the years.

During the conference I was talking to a friend who’s become a celebrity on TikTok.  I also spoke to another friend who’s become a more traditional media darling.  They both outshine me by orders of magnitude.  Attending events like this is always an humbling experience.  I’ve managed to hang around since 1991, with a few gaps, and although it’s always a grind to get ready and get myself out the door, I always walk away amazed at how much so many people have achieved.  Mine is not the only story of a first-generation college student finding a place in the professional world, even if it may not be exactly the place I’d hoped for.  I’m in good company.  I do suspect that most of my readers are not people from this venue.  If I’m wrong, please feel free to comment to let me know.

Mostly since being here I’ve been musing over Edgar Allan Poe and worrying about the traffic I’m sure to encounter once I get off the train and have to drive home during rush hour in New Jersey.  But I’ve also been listening to the stories of friends and colleagues.  They may think they’re pitching me their latest book, but what I’m hearing is their story.  That’s perhaps the most wonderful thing about conferences.  Being distracted enough not to notice when good news creeps upon you.  I know blogs are old fashioned and generally considered outdated.  That describes me as well.  But it warms my heart that so many viewers have stopped by.  My profound thanks to you all!

Boston’s Poe

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Among my parasocial relationships, the strangest are those with people long dead.  Poe is among them, and, I suspect, this is probably a common thing.  As I age and find it difficult to muster the energy to attend large meetings with lots of people, the one factor that excited me about this year’s AAR/SBL, apart from being in New England again, was meeting Poe.  Now, I know that “Poe Returning to Boston” isn’t actually Poe himself.  But I do believe that places retain something of the essence of what happens in them.  Poe was born in Boston, on Carver Street.  The building itself was demolished some time ago.  I set out to see the site yesterday morning before the conference began, only to find that it is now fenced off, having been acquired by MassDOT.  As I stood there, wondering, fearing, it occurred to me just how much of a role pilgrimages play in our lives.

I’ve written about my SBL experiences before on this blog—look at my November posts for many of the years I’ve been doing this—but Boston is by far the most personal.  Part of it is certainly the fact that I lived here for about three years, but Poe is definitely part of it too.  As I went to do an uncrowded photo essay of Stefanie Rocknak’s statue, although it was quite early on a Sunday morning, and also quite chilly, I wasn’t the only one there.  A couple came along to pose with Poe.  When I took my initial photo (on my Saturday morning post) I had to await a different couple consorting with Poe.  I know this isn’t Poe, but it has come to represent his presence is my favorite city.  The mingling of emotions was strong.  

The sign designating this as Edgar Allan Poe Square is faded and weather-beaten.  I can imagine that local politicians have headier issues with which to wrestle, beyond replacing an aging sign for aging tourists.  And having read J. W. Ocker’s Poe-Land, I know there’s a bust of Poe in the Public Library now.  I walk by it each morning and evening, but the conference schedule keeps me out.  Poe himself was no great fan of Boston but this is where the world first met him.  I know that I should get my head in the game of academic conferencing, but I’m a little distracted by the presence of a friend I never met.  And breathing the rarified air of New England.

Revisiting

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It’s funny returning to a city you once felt you knew well.  Cities are constantly evolving creatures and even though I got around Boston as a student and then as an employee of Ritz Camera, there were places I simply never found.  There was no internet in those days so we relied a lot on word of mouth.  If others weren’t talking about it, I’d never hear.  I first realized Boston had a Chinatown when attending my first AAR/SBL here.  That was in the day when you had to mail or fax hotel registrations in, if I recall, and I do remember staying up to midnight to try to get first choice after that.  Ironically, this year I again ended up in that neighborhood, south of the modestly-sized Chinatown.  I really didn’t mind, though, since the hotel isn’t too far from Edgar Allan Poe.

I first learned about “Poe Returning to Boston” from my daughter.  She saw it while visiting Boston with a friend.  I learned more about it by reading J. W. Ocker’s Poe-Land.  When I lived here, from 1985 through 1988, I knew of no public markers of Poe’s presence.  None of the more prominent ones were here then.  On a trip to Boston for Routledge I sought out the Poe birthplace plaque—the actual house had been torn down—and found it.  It’s still here as I saw last night.  But the place that was formerly marked only by a painted electrical box now has a statue.  Poe, preceded by his raven, walks across the area named for him with a suitcase in hand.  Behind him, pages from his manuscripts lie on the ground.

It’s long been known that Boston and Poe had an ambivalent relationship.  Poe was born here and lived here for a time, but never felt that the city accepted him.  He lived in New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore for some time, but mostly considered Richmond, Virginia home.  That’s where the Allans lived and where his mother is buried.  Poe himself famously and mysteriously died in Baltimore.  He had some measure of fame at the time but still lived in poverty.  The feeling seems to be that Poe would’ve liked to have liked Boston—it has been my favorite major US city ever since I first moved here four decades ago.  Now, of course, I only get back on occasion, mostly when AAR/SBL comes to town.  Although Poe wasn’t here the last time I was, I always find something new when I return.

Boston Bound

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Honestly, I’ve reached a stage where travel seems quite a burden.  I’m a creature of habit and I haven’t had to interrupt that habit for three years now.  I missed the last two years of the AAR/SBL conference due to a variety of issues.  I’m pleased that this meeting is in Boston, a city of which I have fond memories.  Still, getting there from here isn’t as easy as you might think.  It’s simple enough to catch a direct train from New York or Philadelphia, but I don’t live in either.  To be there in time for my meetings later today I have to catch a fairly early train.  That’s not a problem; I’m an early riser.  To get to a station where a car might safely be left for four nights is a bit more difficult.  It involves an hour’s drive no matter where you end up going.  I’ve driven in Philly enough to know that I don’t like driving in Philly.

Although Allentown is the third largest city in the state, there is no train service from it to the Amtrak lines that lead up and down the coast.  So I’ll be driving a while.  Once on the train at least I won’t have to worry about traffic.  At least for a few days.  In Boston I wasn’t able to get into one of the close hotels.  In warmer months that wouldn’t be much of an issue, but November in Massachusetts can be chilly.  I remember that from living there.  There are shuttles from my hotel to the conference center, but I like walking Boston.  It brings back memories.  Beantown is one of those places that many people fall in love with and want to stay after they get there.  Although I lingered three years that didn’t seem enough.

Photo by todd kent on Unsplash

I was a young man when I moved to Boston.  Looking back, I knew so very little.  Almost as little as I know now.  For this conference, I’ve stayed in this same distant hotel in the past.  It’s in a part of town I’d never explored as a student.  It isn’t far, however, from Edgar Allan Poe Square.  I’m hoping the weather allows for some photographic opportunities around there.  The conference itself, in my more familiar Back Bay, is work.  Not much time to relax and see the sights.  Still, I know that once I get there I’ll again feel the old attraction.  It happens every time I go.  Even it means a drive and a train ride into late November.

Visiting Poe

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J. W. Ocker’s Poe-Land is a book I read too late.  That’s not to denigrate its status as the best book I’ve read this year—no, not at all.  It’s just that, unaware of Ocker’s book, I’d visited many of the Poe sites in America without the advantage of the full story.  Since my daughter also appreciates Poe, we’d gone to the Poe house in Philadelphia and the Free Library where Dickens’ stuff raven lives (sort of).  We’d gone to see Poe’s grave in Baltimore and his reputed dorm room at the University of Virginia while she was on college campus tours.  We attended the Poe exhibit at the Morgan Library in Manhattan.  We’d even gone to Fort Moultrie in South Carolina, stopping at the Poe Tavern on a family reunion trip to Charleston.  On my own, I’d sought out Poe’s birthplace on a business trip to Boston.  (The plaque was not there when I lived in the city.). Poe-Land is Ocker’s travel log of an intentional visit to all of these places.  (I should mention that we also went to Richmond to see the southern family but I arrived with a migraine and we had to put off the tourist stuff for another trip.  And I was distracted by Lovecraft on my two trips to Providence.)

To a Poe fan, and I can count myself as no other, this book is itself a treasure trove.  Ocker took a year to visit the Poe sites, north to south and even to England.  He writes about what he found and the people he met.  These people are likely my tribe, but I tend to work alone and know people primarily virtually.  I’ve tried to get museum people to let me behind locked doors, but I don’t have the clout.  (When I was a professor I had a bit more pull.)  I enjoyed every page of Poe-Land.  It was a book I didn’t want to rush through since it made me smile knowing that for reading time the next day I’d still have more to go.  And I learned a ton about Poe.

I’ve read several books about Poe, of course.  As an ignorant kid, I bought a used copy, in five volumes, of his collected works and biography.  I bought it at Goodwill and treasured it.  Until as an ignorant (and poor) college student, I resold it along with many of my childhood reading treasures.  I read biographies in the school library.  And I’ve read (and bought for good) some as an adult.  I even mention Poe in most of my books, including Sleepy Hollow as American Myth, because he’s part of my story too.  Poe-Land was easily my favorite book of 2025.  Now I want to read more about Poe.  But in the end I face a dilemma.  Do I read more about Poe, or do I go back for another of J. W. Ocker’s books?

Another Picnic

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It’s curious, the desire to see a movie based on a novel you’ve already read.  I was intrigued to see how Peter Weir might handle Picnic at Hanging Rock.  As my post about the novel points out, the book, as it stands, is ambiguous about what happens to the missing girls.  It was only as I saw the film that I realized just how complex a story was crammed into a relatively brief novel.  Film directors have to make choices and although this one follows the book to quite a large extent, some elements were more clearly implied in the cinematic version.  The suspicion on Michael Fitzhubert was clearer, as was the fear that the girls had been molested.  The character of Mrs. Appleyard, although not exactly kind, is treated somewhat sympathetically.  It’s not implied that she might’ve killed Sara, for example.  Her treatment of the orphan, however, does lead to suicide.

This story isn’t simple to untangle even in the book.  Being literature, it isn’t clear exactly what is happening throughout.  It allows for ambiguity.  The novel never explains how the girls went missing or what happened to them.  Hanging Rock is presented as mysterious, almost a portal.  One way the movie deals with this is by invoking Poe.  It begins with a voiceover reading “Dream within a Dream.”  Indeed, the movie is shot with a dream-like quality.  The roles of the male characters is, appropriately, understated.  The story is about women and coming of age.  It’s often considered an example of dark academia.  Appleyard College isn’t a school at which fair treatment is doled out and Miranda, the most accomplished student, is compared to an angel, adding to the dreamlike quality of it all.

Using Poe to frame a film may not be entirely fair.  It does signal the viewer that what follows may or may not be reality.  Although Wikipedia can’t be considered the final authority—anyone can edit it—it lists (as of this writing) the movie Picnic at Hanging Rock as an adaptation of Poe’s famous poem.  Maybe by implication, but the story is clearly that of Joan Lindsay’s novel.  She presented this, in the sixties, as an account of an actual event, which it is not.  I found it interesting that dialogue was added to the film that doesn’t appear in the novel.  Overall, however, this seems to work as an art film.  The movie has been hailed as the greatest Australian movie of all time, and just this year was rereleased in theaters.  I’m glad to have seen it, but remain curious.

Parson’s Poe

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Some things just don’t mix: oil and water, cats and dogs, intelligence and Republican policy.  That’s the way of nature.  I don’t have a lot of time to listen to music—unlike some authors, I can’t write with music playing.  I end up paying attention to the music rather than what I’m trying to do.  So the other day when I had the opportunity, I went through our CDs to see what I hadn’t heard for a while.  I’d completely forgotten about the concept album Tales of Mystery and Imagination Edgar Allan Poe by The Alan Parsons Project.  Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Alan Parsons, but some of their songs are among my absolute favorites.  One of them can almost invariably make me tear up and my throat clench.  And I think Ammonia Avenue is one of the great albums of all time.

You’d think their mix of alternative rock would be favorable to Poe.  Poe is extremely personal to me.  I’ve read probing biographies and put them down thinking how much my perspective is similar to that of Poe.  I mention him in my books because he’s my writing companion.  APP just doesn’t get it.  Neither did Lou Reed.  Like Black Francis, I like Lou Reed.  But I like Poe more.  Not even Poe (sorry Anne Decatur Danielewski) comes close.   I have heard rock adaptations of Poe that I do like, so why didn’t Alan Parson, Lou Reed, or Poe (Danielewski) do it for me?  It’s difficult to say.  Music is very personal to me.  It stays in my head for a very long time, so I have to be careful what I let in there.  I don’t write much about music on this blog because I just don’t know you well enough.

I got the Alan Parson’s album long after it was published.  I can’t remember how I found out about it, but I had great hopes for it.  I guess Poe (the man) has a certain sound profile in my head.  It’s likely because, to me, Poe is more than the author of tales I read when I was young.  He is a symbol, coming to represent more than just another writer who struggled and was likely never understood in his lifetime (if ever).  As those who write and attempt publication know, this is a hostile business.  It’s difficult to get published in the traditional way and then it’s difficult to get your work noticed after it’s published.  These days a “like” and a “share” can go a long way (click “like” if you do), but even so my Poe music will be mine alone.

Sunday Wednesday

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Being busy people, it took us a couple weeks to watch the eight episodes of Tim Burton’s Wednesday, and I think he’s really outdone himself.  As I mentioned before, I was never a great fan of The Addam’s Family, but I watched it often enough to know the characters and their quirks.   I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the television show.  It had monsters, but nothing really scary.  It was funny but some of the humor seemed beyond me.  I watched it anyway.  I didn’t bother with the movie when it came out.  Then on a rainy weekend afternoon I watched episode 1 of Wednesday and I was hooked.  For one thing, this is dark academia personified.  Exclusive, gothic, school, dark mysteries, secret societies.  It’s all there.  And for another thing, it’s well written and the acting is very good.  And then there’s Poe.

Image credit: Chainwit. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

(On a side note: I recently found another review of Nightmares with the Bible.  It is my most reviewed and least successful book.  The reviewer agreed with other reviewers that the Poe angle didn’t convince them.  As I told one critic, the Poe angle is a personal one.  Poe was a man, a sin of which I’m also guilty.  And men of a particular stripe feel protective of women.  Maybe it’s one of those biological things we should just get over, but Poe felt that it was poetic and, being a far less intelligent experiencer of that same disposition, I feel it too.  I think Tim Burton might also, for Wednesday seems full of that as well.)

At Nevermore Academy, the morbid, anti-social loner Wednesday learns to accept a kind of friendship from other outcasts.  There’s a town vs. gown aspect as the residents of Jericho don’t exactly love the academy, but they appreciate the money it brings in.  The founding pilgrim, Joseph Crackstone, was a hater of those who were different and tried to rid the world of others not like him (this is important).  Over eight episodes this backstory interrupts into the present and threatens the very existence of Nevermore.  What ties it all together, of course, is Wednesday.  Nearly as gothic as Sleepy Hollow, this Netflix series showcases the aspects of Burton’s vision that I find most compelling.  And the first season was nominated for quite a few awards.  A second season has been approved and I’ll be watching that one, down the road.  I can’t get enough dark academia these days, no matter the day of the week.

Poe Day

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Perhaps best known for his rabidly racist The Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith was nevertheless influential in early filmmaking.  I’m fascinated by how literature made its way to celluloid, particularly in the early days.  It was thus that I discovered Griffith’s Edgar Allen [sic] Poe, a silent film from 1909.  A dramatized version of Poe’s writing of “The Raven,” this seven-minute movie opens with Virginia Poe—the “Lenore” of the poem—in the process of dying at the Poe’s hovel.  Not able to keep warm or to find nourishment, she languishes on a cot until Poe arrives home and covers her with his coat.  At that moment a raven appears on the bust of Pallas above the chamber door, leading Poe to write the poem in a white heat.  He knows it’s a masterpiece and leaves Virginia promising success.

In a scene only too familiar to any writer, Poe takes the poem to the publishers, three of whom simply dismiss him, the third laughing at his work.  This particular scene rings so true.  A fourth editor buys it from him on the spot.  This is, in fact, how publishing works.  I’ve had 33 short stories either published or accepted for publication.  By far the majority of them were rejected multiple times.  One of them, previously turned down by six editors, ended up winning a prize.  So it goes.  You’ll never find an editor who “gets” you every time.  Even those who like your work may eventually start sending you elsewhere.  I often wonder how many writers of what would be classics died unpublished because of some editor’s choice.  But back to Poe.

Screenshot: public domain,

Newly paid for his work, he buys food and a blanket and returns home jubilant.  Of course, it is only to find Virginia dead.  Poe’s life did have its share of intense drama.  His death remains mysterious all these years later, and Virginia’s death was a severe blow to him.  “The Raven” was published in 1845 and Virginia died two years later, with Poe himself passing yet two years beyond that.  This film, which I learned about from Jonathan Elmer’s In Poe’s Wake, was made sixty years after Poe’s death.  He’d already become an icon by then, instantly recognizable in pancake makeup.  But even now, more than a century later, publishing is still a matter of the same process.  One of my own novels has been declined over 100 times, despite having once been under contract.  I do know the feeling of being rejected by publishers, even as I participate in a ritual as old as writing for publication.  Happy birthday, Mr. Poe.

Oblong Box

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When Borders was closing—a sad day in the annals of American readers—things were marked down.  On one venture to a remaining store somewhere in New Jersey, where the checkout line snaked like one of those around a Times Square theater before the doors open, I picked up Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems.  Poe has, of course, been in the public domain for many decades so anybody can publish his works.  I did attempt to sit down and read through this behemoth that contains 73 short stories, but stumbled at “Hans Pfaall,” the first.  This story is really a novelette, in today’s measure, coming in at nearly 19,000 words.  (It took Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque to get me through it.)  So I’ve been content to dip into it now and again to read one of Poe’s stories.  In print. When the mood hits.

I read “The Oblong Box” in preparation for watching the movie.  I had never encountered this story before, and I prefer to read the base before attempting the latter adaptations (particularly by AIP).  The problem with reading Poe from this remove—in the light of his reputation—is that even the title tells us the box is a coffin.  How it is to be used in Poe’s tale may be unknown at first.  Here Poe divides his characteristic obsessiveness between the narrator and Mr. Wyatt, his temperamental artist friend who is newly married.  Wyatt, the owner of said oblong box, takes it on a voyage by boat from Charleston to New York.  The narrator obsesses over what might be in the box, being kept in a cramped stateroom rather than in the hold.  A storm leads to a shipwreck and rather than be rescued, Wyatt binds himself to the box and leaps into the ocean.  I won’t put the reveal here, but you get the idea. Today the title gives away Poe’s original twist.

There are still many of Poe’s stories that I haven’t read.  I’ve had enough of a head start, however, that I may eventually make it through those he published.  I’m aware that some of them may be funny, and some are tales of ratiocination.  Some may be completely unexpected.  Like many writers, Poe’s reputation is based on certain of his most well-known tales.  But also like most writers, his interest ranged fairly widely.  And he had that sense of “what if” that tends to drive those of us who write in a similar vein.  But these days we know that if we see an oblong box we’ll already have a pretty good idea of what’s inside.

Photo by Tom Oates, 2013; This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Nabokov at English Wikipedia

Premature

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The last, for me (but actually the third), Roger Corman Poe Cycle film is The Premature Burial.  Released the same year as Tales of Terror, it departs from the other Poe films in not starring Vincent Price.  Indeed, this is because it was originally not an American International film, but was later brought into the fold.  This particular story by Poe doesn’t have the superstructure of this film at all.  Indeed, Poe’s tale is spare, beginning with reported events of premature burial and ending with a first-person fictional account.  The movie does have a quote or two from the story, as well as the elaborate preparations that the narrator, in the movie the protagonist Guy Carrell, undertakes to be able to escape his mausoleum.  In the movie Carrell has to be an aristocrat, so as to afford such a fancy contrivance.

Although the screenplay was written by Charles Beaumont, a frequent Twilight Zone contributor, it lacks pacing and contains some improbabilities.  The theme of grave-robbery is also prominent and doesn’t fit well with what actually happens in the plot.  Since the movie is over sixty years old it’s safe to say that it involves a twist ending.  The marriage—missing in Poe—of Emily Gault to Guy is a ruse to get the family fortune by murdering Guy by fright.  Emily exploits his fears of premature burial (his father suffered catalepsy)  to lead to his own premature burial.  The grave-robbers, however, visit Guy that night, not realizing that he was only catatonic.  Guy then takes his revenge, only to be shot by his sister when he attempts to kill an innocent family friend.

Fitting for the Victorian era, Poe used the theme of premature burial in a number of his stories.  “The Premature Burial” is the tale that contains Poe’s famous quote, “The boundaries which divide Life from Death, are at best shadowy and vague.”  This remains true even going on two centuries later.  Accounts of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) complicate our simple binary of life and death.  The movie is, of course, coded as horror and is part of the suggestive string of interpretations that cast Poe as a “horror writer.”  Corman had been growing a reputation as a director of horror (but he, like Poe, worked in other genres) and it was this recasting of Poe into what was developing into a mature cinematic genre that partially solidified the writer’s reputation.  Premature Burial isn’t the best of the series, but I do feel as though I’ve accomplished something by finally having watched all of them.  Or have I?

More Poe

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Having admitted to not having seen the entire Roger Corman Poe cycle, I figured I’d better get to work.  I had two movies left to watch and I found Tales of Terror for free on a commercial television streaming service.  As the title indicates, it is an anthology film, bringing together four of Poe’s stories in a three-featurette format.  At the same time, I am trying to catch up on Poe tales that I’ve never read.  More on that to come.  Tales of Terror begins with “Morella,” one of those stories I’ve not read.  There is a danger, of course, in watching a movie first since Corman loved to sensationalize.  I’ll need to wait until I find the time to read “Morella” to know just how much invention there is.  The movie version is an undeserved revenge from beyond the grave story.  Of course it stars Vincent Price.

Although “The Black Cat” gives Price top billing, the story focuses on Peter Lorre’s character, Montresor, borrowed from “The Cask of Amontillado,” with which it’s interlaced (The Cat of Amontillado?).  Montresor is an alcoholic who hates both his wife and cat.  Taking his wife’s money to buy alcohol (something I personally witnessed as a child), he eventually stumbles into a wine tasting convention where he meets Fortunato (Price).  When Fortunato begins an affair with Montresor’s wife it becomes an excuse to wall them both up in the basement.  Lorre plays his Poe characters funny and that makes this segment more a comedy.  Also, there’s a black cat.  The last featurette, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” also stars Basil Rathbone.  I haven’t read this story either, so I’m not sure of its fidelity to Poe.  Yet.

The “Poe Cycle” was part of American International Pictures (AIP’s) collaboration with Corman.  Most of the movies were produced quickly and cheaply, although Richard Matheson did write the script for this anthology.  Of course, I hope I haven’t spoiled the two Poe stories I hadn’t read.  I do own an anthology of all of Poe’s fiction, and sometimes it takes movies to make me remove the ponderous tome from my shelf.  (Yes, I’m aware that Poe’s tales are also available for free online, but Poe deserves to be read from an actual book.)  As I’ve mentioned before, I never kept a record of the movies I saw, particularly on television, as a child.  Since the Poe Cycle was still being shown in theaters for part of my youth, I likely missed most (but not all of them) when they were aired on television.  I do remember seeing The Raven decades ago.  At least the internet does allow for a strange kind of resurrection since most of the cycle can be found for free online.

Short Story

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I often reflect on how little I know.  No matter how much I read there is more to be read.  Works worthy of time but sacrificed to circumstance.  I was recently reading a short story by Poe that I’d never read before.  As others have noted, Poe was a prolific author of a great deal of forms—poems, a novel, letters, a scientific treatise, literary criticism, and, of course, his stories.  I came to know his stories through cheap collections available in my small town, mostly not along the lines of those Poe himself selected.  Indeed, editions of his own chosen works, such as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, before the advent of internet-based publishing, were difficult to come by.  Original editions cost many thousands of dollars.  Poe isn’t alone in this category—short stories are an unusual genre.

I know from personal experience that finding a publisher for a collection of such stories is nearly as difficult as finding a publisher for poetry.  Publishers are looking for money, of course, and like Poe, all writers produce stories that interest some but not others.  The novel is safer, and even today’s amazing writers have to find success as novelists before publishers will offer volumes of their short stories.  Tis a pity, really.  I have many volumes of short stories on my shelves, including some of Poe’s, but for some reason publishers tend to cram such volumes so full that they become unwieldy.  Intimidating almost.  It leads to that feeling of existential dread that I felt approaching War and Peace—would I indeed survive to finish it?  (I did, but that is such a Poe-like question I had to employ it.)

The short story is an important literary form that is singularly difficult to publish.  I have managed to find homes for about thirty such pieces, but many more have failed to move even just  the internet critics.  Those that have been published have brought no income at all.  In Poe’s day, an author attempting to make a living could not afford to give away their life’s blood.  Indeed, Poe’s older contemporary Washington Irving struggled with pirated copies of his works being sold overseas (he spent a great deal of time in Europe).  Like Poe, Irving excelled in the short story, or sketch.  We’re often at the mercy of editors who select the stories for us, making them available.  I suspect there’s much that we miss by not stepping outside their personal tastes regarding what to include.  Or, just as importantly, exclude.  Some day, perhaps, I will have read all of Poe’s short stories.  Until then, I’ll find them when necessary.

Waking Poe

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It’s personal and it’s deep.  My appreciation for Edgar Allan Poe, that is.  I’ve read a few biographies of him over the years, but my engagement with him feels more like that of a boon companion.  Still, I learn a lot from looking at him from different angles.  (And yes, he will be in my forthcoming book.)  Jonathan Elmer’s In Poe’s Wake: Travels in the Graphic and Atmospheric caught my attention but I can’t remember exactly how I heard about it.  This was a case where the back-cover copy won me over, noting as it does, that Poe’s image is everywhere.  Still, I approach things as an historian.  How did this lead to that?  And I must confess that I’m not a great fan of heavily theoretical work (I see plenty of it).  As soon as I see Deleuze, my eyes begin to glaze over.  Do we have to go there again?

All of which is to say Elmer’s book is erudite and, at times, quite academic.  I learned a lot from it, particularly the first two chapters.  Much of the rest of it was a bit too theoretical for my plebeian tastes, but I was still learning as I went.  I hope.  I guess I was thinking it would be more of a history of how Poe ended up, for example, on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Or how the Baltimore Ravens got their name.  Or even how the Ultima Thule daguerreotype became so ubiquitous.  These may well be impossible questions to answer, even as some of us are fool enough to rush in and try.  In academia, the theoretical is a much safer approach.  It impresses Deans and others in the department.

I occasionally listen to famous people talking about fame.  How it destroys some people and obliterates aspects of others’ lives.  Poe was reasonably well known during his lifetime, but not famous on the level that, say, the internet can instantly make you.  Or even TikTok.  Even back within my lifetime (which, I gather, is about the same as Elmer’s) Poe’s influence has grown dramatically.  His was a household name in my childhood, at least among a certain type of reader.  It wasn’t unusual to find people who’d never heard of him.  I suspect that is also true today, but Poe looms large over October and even the New York Times nods in his direction when the days grow shorter.  Like most writers, Poe isn’t who we think he is.  Elmer’s book does indeed explore his wake, and it is one that continues to cause waves over the centuries.

Seasonal Poe

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The more I read of and about Edgar Allan Poe, the more convinced I become that he wasn’t as associated with horror in his own mind as he has become.  As one of the earliest American writers, he has become the icon of those who wrote on the dark side.  His contemporaries—Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville—did as well, but it was Poe who became iconic.  On a recent trip to Michaels to take in the seasonal ambiance, Poe’s presence was difficult to ignore.  I wasn’t prepared to shoot a photo-essay (I’m not sure how they feel about such things in a store, in any case) so I didn’t photograph all the pieces.  “The Raven” is frequently referenced, with typewriters with the poem emerging and large, ominous black birds about, but Poe himself also appears.  There are, of course, painted busts of Poe.

But Halloween has grown more whimsical over the years.  Arguably for my entire life it has been primarily a children’s holiday, but many have noticed that those of us who grew up with Halloween have retained adult interest in it.  Part of this is no doubt commercial since the captains of industry have learned people will spend more on Halloween than any other holiday except Christmas (I do discuss this in my forthcoming book).  And indeed, the Headless Horseman appears quite a lot as well.  Irving, however, isn’t there on the ground.  Poe is.  The whimsical part comes through in showing the humor of the season.  For example, although Poe is shown in the noble bust format, he’s also portrayed (fully clothed) on the toilet.

Finally, there were figurines of a fanciful tombstone of Poe.  They even got the dates correct.  Now, there’s more to be said regarding the comparison with Irving.  You can find the Headless Horseman on the toilet as well (along with Dracula).  You can find the Horseman in bust format as well.  When it comes to tombstones, however, the fictional Ichabod Crane shows up alongside the nonfictional Poe.  That casts a certain light on Irving’s most famous story.  I’ll save that for another post, however, since authors are expected to repeatedly plug their books.  I left Michaels strangely reflective.  Poe-themed merchandise is fairly typical any given year, but since we’re having our first Halloween party in some years, and since I’ve been exploring Poe’s range as a writer, this clear abundance of Poe as an icon gave me pause.  As if I were coming within view of the melancholy house of Usher.