Edgar Allan Poe is credited with inventing mystery fiction, and his own death is still a subject of intense speculation. Matthew Pearl investigates one of the most peculiar puzzles in literary history.
Only four mourners attended his funeral in Baltimore, along with an Episcopal minister, the gravedigger and the sexton. The minister, a distant relation of the deceased, decided not to deliver a sermon to such a small gathering. The grave itself sat unmarked for 25 years. As if fate itself conspired to accentuate the void in the death of Edgar Allan Poe, 15 years after the burial, a train derailed into a quarry and destroyed the stone that was finally being constructed for the grave. The tablet read Hic Tandem Felicis Conduntur, “Here At Last He Is Happy”.
Edgar Poe (the “Allan” was not yet commonly in use) had had a troubled life by the time he died at 40, though a blanket assertion of unhappiness is facile. As a young man, Poe had rebelled against his foster father and jumped headlong into the literary world. He produced some 70 diverse short tales and around the same number of poems, as well as a lesser-known novel and an uncompleted play, and challenged the larger writing community with his harsh, explosive literary criticism. His professional decisions brought him a fair amount of scorn and continual financial hardship, but also considerable personal fulfilment.
Poe was not an icon at the time of his death in 1849. He could disappear without a trace, and he had. At the end of September that year, Poe had been lecturing in Richmond, Virginia to raise money for his new literary magazine, The Stylus. From Richmond, he intended to go to Philadelphia and then home to New York, where he would travel south with his aunt Maria Clemm. Instead, he ended up on an extended stay in Baltimore. The official record loses sight of him for five days before he turns up, incapacitated, inside an inn called Ryan’s.We came close to knowing more. Neilson Poe, a cousin from Baltimore, visited the hospital where Edgar was brought from Ryan’s, but doctors told him the patient was too fragile to be seen. Immediately after Edgar died, Neilson investigated his recent whereabouts, lamenting that he could find no answers. A few weeks later, however, Neilson wrote a letter to Poe’s first (and least friendly) biographer claiming he had come into possession of information about Poe’s death known only to him, and planned to write it all down in a “deliberate communication”. Neilson never wrote another word on the subject.
Today, the story of Poe’s death is a subject of intense fascination. Downtown Baltimore has signs leading tourists to Poe’s burial place. Fresh flowers can be found at the foot of the memorial obelisk built in 1875. Where there was once no gravestone, there are now two: one to mark the original spot of his grave and the other, the obelisk, where the body was later moved to. Every year, Poe’s birthday brings a gathering at the cemetery, which is covered by the national press. By contrast, few Bostonians know where Poe’s birthplace is in Boston, or even that it is in Boston. Poe’s biography may be said, in a sense, to begin with his death rather than his birth.
This was my initial Poe experience, too. The paperback edition of Poe’s tales and poems I read when I was at school said he was found in shocking condition in the gutter (there was no gutter involved in Poe’s actual death, but the gutter tale is at least as old as 1850). The questions over Poe’s fate make his writing more intriguing, his mysteriousness more mysterious. When I began researching the subject, someone asked me if Poe had orchestrated his death to keep us guessing.
This idea has been poed before. Baudelaire called his favourite American poet’s death “an almost suicide” as if Poe plotted death, and unfounded rumours of suicide circulated in America until fairly late in the 19th century. One of Poe’s correspondents, a young doctor named George Eveleth, wondered whether Poe pretended to die as a hoax on his readers.
From early in his career, Poe was seen as excessively morbid and sacrilegious – or, at least, unreligious – about death. Posthumously, when Poe became widely popular, his writing was turned into what contemporaries who bemoaned his lack of moral interests would have never imagined: schoolroom material. There is a telling cartoon I found in a thick archival file of miscellanies. It depicts a housewife asking her friend whether she agreed that Poe’s tales were weird, and her friend responding, “Yes, but they don’t hold a candle to some of those my husband tells me when he comes home late.” Poe had been tamed, marketed, domesticated. A line of cigars was named after him early in the 20th century, with the truly bizarre tag, “Banish Your Cares by Smoking a Fragrant Poe Cigar”.
The countervailing pressure to maintain Poe’s darker mystique has remained strong, and that mystique is driven by his death story. In 1899, a female spiritualist claimed that Poe’s ghost dictated a poem to her revealing the truth about his demise. Poe, whose ghost turns out to be a rather bad poet, confesses openly to the drunken debauch that contemporary newspapers blamed for the death: “Oh! Was all my lifelong error crowded in that night of terror?”
Theorists and scholars have used the blank spots in the record of his death narrative to suggest that Poe was the victim, not an agent in his demise – a victim, specifically, of political corruption, robbery, government conspiracy or the enraged relative of a woman he courted. Each has its evidence and its proponents. One of the exhibits at the Poe museum in Richmond features spinning plastic cubes with different theories for the causes of his death printed on each side. Conclusive causes are regularly offered up and just as reliably knocked down, for a true conclusion would threaten the operative mythos of the Poe story.
The Poe museum’s cubes become appropriate symbols for the state of scholarship about Poe’s death. Today, all the theories are considered more or less equally valid and hence interchangeable. This was part of what attracted me to the subject: a need to understand the obstinate stasis of it all. When deciding to work on a novel of historical fiction with Poe’s death at its core, I faced a difficult question: was the story of Poe’s death rooted in history, or in his fiction?
The quieter mysteries in the record of his death suit Poe better than most of the bizarre conspiracies that have been proposed. For instance, the geographic map of his final days leaves him floating almost arbitrarily from one city to another. Poe lived as an adult in Boston, Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. The last stage of his life reflects the same sense of the ground shifting uncontrollably under his feet.
Poe’s final extended stopover in Baltimore, though probably a last-minute idea, is not as peculiar as it appears. At the time of his death, he was living in New York with his aunt, and had travelled to Richmond to raise money. However, as usual, he came up far short of his expectations. It would stand to reason that Poe might try to do more to bolster The Stylus before returning home. He had once been part of Baltimore’s literary community and had retained contacts.
When he was discovered at Ryan’s inn in “great distress” (as a witness described him), Poe invoked his acquaintance with Dr Joseph Snodgrass. Snodgrass, wo lived nearby, was immediately fetched to assist, ultimately agreeing to a decision by Poe’s former cousin by marriage, Henry Herring, to send Poe to the hospital. Knowing as we do that he would soon die, it has been easiest to interpret Poe’s call for Snodgrass as a plea for help. But a closer look at the documentary materials suggests that Poe could well have been seeking out Snodgrass, who was an editor, in connection with his new literary venture. In fact, the other person that we know Poe sought while in Baltimore was a man named Nathan C Brooks, also an editor and, interestingly, Snodgrass’s former partner in a short-lived magazine.
In Philadelphia, there was a concrete financial boost awaiting Poe. A piano manufacturer named John Loud offered him $100 to spend a few days in Philadelphia editing his wife’s poems. Poe found the offer irresistible. Considering that Poe earned only $275 for all of 1849, $100 was an enormous sum. It has never been clear whether or not Poe visited Philadelphia in his final weeks. There is tension between the strong incentive for Poe to travel to Philadelphia, and a timeline that apparently traps Poe in Baltimore. In a “memo” that surfaced in the mid-20th century, an acquaintance named Thomas Lane made the (unverifiable) claim that Poe was, in fact, present in Philadelphia in the days before he was found in Baltimore.
More can be coaxed from Neilson Poe than it first appears. Though no evidence exists that Neilson wrote further of what he knew about his cousin’s fate, this should not lead us to assume he did not tell other people. My initial instinct was that he would pass his knowledge on to his daughter Amelia Poe, who became involved with the legacy of her late relative Edgar. In fact, Neilson instead sat down with a friend named Coale who was collecting information for an article about Edgar in Harper’s magazine in 1871, and shared some information to be used “gingerly and sensibly”.
Among other titbits recorded in a document by Coale, Neilson claimed that Edgar did go to Philadelphia in those final days, or rather tried to. His explanation of events, that Poe was incapacitated by “a single drink” on his way to Philadelphia and was put on a train back to Baltimore, is vague and may be fleshed out with other known details. The travelogue is more significant. It makes far more sense that Poe tried to go to Philadelphia, and failed, than that he did not try at all.
One of the most surprising discoveries I made in my research allowed me to support Neilson’s claim that Poe never reached Philadelphia, and discredits Lane’s claim about Poe having stayed in Philadelphia. Poe, who lost his mother when he was a child, was notoriously dependent on the attention of his aunt Maria Clemm, who was also his former mother-in-law (Poe’s 13-year-old wife was his first cousin, a fact not particularly noteworthy for the time and place).
While travelling, Poe wrote to her often and demanded she do the same. In fact, he pleaded that Clemm send a letter to Philadelphia so that it would be waiting for him as soon as he arrived there to meet the Louds. In a twist that has been left unexplained for a century and a half, Poe instructed Clemm to address that letter to a pseudonym, “EST Grey, Esquire”, and not to sign the letter.
For the first half of the 19th century in America, individuals picked up their post at the post office rather than receiving it in their homes. When a letter was not picked up, the post office advertised in the newspaper with names of those who had letters. On October 3, 1849 – the same day Poe was discovered in Ryan’s inn – the Philadelphia Public Ledger listed a letter for one “Grey, ESF.” This is clearly Maria Clemm’s letter to Poe (the “T” must have been corrupted somehere along the way into an “F”).
When I unearthed this newspaper listing, it meant not only finding a new Poe artefact, but also a revelation. It exposed fresh evidence that Poe had not reached Philadelphia, since the letter he was so anxious for had wasted away at the post office. This was probably the last letter written to Poe in his lifetime.
It may be an odd suggestion from a novelist, but the challenge of refreshing our understanding of Poe’s death is to resist the temptations of narrative. The challenge is so acute in this case because of Poe’s literary impact. Though his immediate contemporaries appreciated him only grudgingly, his writing has transformed our consciousness.
Poe is credited with inventing mystery fiction with his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1941). The result was not only a new and marketable genre. It was also a storytelling paradigm in which a baffling plot is pieced together in one fell swoop at the very end – revealing a plot that was there all along but which we (the readers) had been too blind to see. This structure of plot revelation instilled us with a sense of closure: anything unknown, we tend to believe, is only in a transitional stage and, sooner or later, will be fully revealed. The fact that this is almost never the case never weakens our expectations.
For The Poe Shadow, my novel tackling Poe’s death, the most authentic path seemed to me one that would present new primary evidence and raw information (including the “Grey, ESF” listing, as well as the first explanation of why Poe used the peculiar alias for that letter), but at the same time to allow the big narratives strung around Poe’s death to come from the characters’ mouths – that is, from fallible sources – rather than be forcibly imposed as authoritative.
On his deathbed, Poe, according to his attending physician, cried out repeatedly for Reynolds. Was Reynolds someone he knew? Was he trying to give us a clue into the cause of his condition? Was he saying something else altogether? Maybe, maybe and maybe. For each question, there are raw facts and competing narratives to tie the facts together. Imagination is required, but it must be led by the facts rather than the other way around.
Among the archived papers and correspondence of the 20th-century Poe scholar Thomas Mabbott, I came across a letter with an amusing request that I always think back to: “I am writing a paper on Edgar Allan Poe for school and I am trying to prove that Poe was insane and that this insanity aided in his writing of such great works of literature.” Not unlike the student manipulating Poe’s life in order to explain his writing, we often want to turn the key moments of a great author’s life into narrative to fit our literary instincts.
Poe’s death stands alongside Christopher Marlowe’s murder as one of the peculiar and impenetrable mysteries in literary history. Unlike Marlowe, who was actually a spy, Poe’s life was, for the most part, excessively normal, despite an element or two that may be read – or misread – as dark and Romantic. We may put pressure on Poe’s death story to compensate for his ordinariness when the latter does not suit our needs. Yet death may be the point at which ordinariness embraces even a literary icon: the time when narrative control is finally out of his, and our, hands.
‘The Poe Shadow’ by Matthew Pearl is published later this month by Harvill Secker at £12.99
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广东省监狱当局对王炳章实施非人道待遇
刘泰
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【2006年5月27日狱委讯】根据与王金环的谈话记录整理/因为王炳章是特殊犯人，其家属探监与其它犯人不同。 需要第一天先去广州，到广东省监狱管理局办理探监手续，然后第二天再去广东省韶关市北江监狱探视，手续是如此之繁琐复杂。
王炳章的姐姐王金环在四月份收到广东省北江监狱会见通知书，其母子俩人于五月十五号去广州，到广东省监狱管理局办理探监手续，然而出乎意料之外，负责此次接待的谢先生说： 现在家属不可以探望王炳章，原因是王炳章在狱中绝食，并且有严重违反监狱的规章制度。 对王炳章实行惩罚三个月，在这三个月当中不准家属探视，更不准与家人通信。
王炳章的姐姐王金环母子俩人一再要求监狱管理局的谢先生，根据她们的具体情况给予照顾：
一、她的父亲刚去世一个多月；
二、她的母亲因心脏病入院，还住在医院中；
三、她本人年岁已大，又路途遥远地从加拿大来到中国，身体状况不好。
她们还建议：监狱当局，如果让她们能去会见王炳章，她们可配合监狱当局做王炳章的工作，还建议监狱当局把对王炳章的惩罚延长一周。 她儿子还说： 如果她们见不到王炳章，她们回去便无法向他姥姥(王炳章的母亲)交待等等……
苦口婆心都无法说服监狱管理局对她们的同情，拒绝她们的请求，袪除而归。
（来源：博讯）
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今天下午公安到孙文广教授家拍照录像，带走电脑，并且对他进行讯问笔录。
今天下午大约5点半钟，我在院子里散步。一位朋友说：下午公安来了一群人，汽车停在37号楼前，问我可知道什么。我说，我什么也不知道。我住27号楼，和 37号楼平行，中间隔了一个大花园。我估计孙文广出事了，因此，我立刻回家，给孙文广打电话，连打几次，都没有人接。我更怀疑是出事了，因为这个时候他不会长时间离开家。我估计他的夫人大约也一起走了。
直到将近7点钟，电话终于打通，情况果真如此。据他说，下午他正在午睡，闯进来了十几个公安，据称是济南市公安局历城区分局的人员，声言要检查电脑。孙文广要他们出示搜查证。他们说有工作证就行，于是，出示了工作证。他们在房间里反复拍照录像，然后把孙文广和他的两台电脑一起带到山东大学公安处办公室，围绕他在网上发表的文章对他进行讯问笔录。前后大约3小时。完毕之后，继续留下电脑，据说要进行检查之后归还，把他用汽车送回家。
他刚刚到家，我就去了电话。原来他的夫人并没有带走，大概是公安把电话线拔出来了。
此事实在出乎意料，因为孙文广教授在文革中因为反革命罪住了8年监狱。平反出狱后，孙文广教授并不气馁，仍然不屈不扰地为中国的民主改革事业，不断地写作，在海外网站发表建言献策，是网络上极为活跃的知名作家。他写的文章都发表在网上，不遮不掩。他先后在香港出版了《狱中上书》《百年祸国》，还有一本书《呼唤自由》也即将出版。他是国际笔会独立中文笔会会员。
2月14日，国务院新闻办公室网络局副局长刘正荣在北京向全世界庄严地宣布：中国公民可自由使用国际互联网，中国与境外的信息沟通是顺畅的。到目前为止，中国没有任何人仅仅因在互联网发表言论而被捕。
刘正荣说，中国网民的言论十分活跃，内容涉及方方面面，其中包括政治性很强的内容。至于在互联网上的哪些行为要承担刑事责任，《全国人大常委会关于维护互联网安全的决定》里做了明确的表述。
现在对孙文广采取的上述措施，请问刘正荣，作何解释？中国政府说话算数吗？这是为了欺世盗名吗？中国政府什么时候才能做到言而有信呢？难道我们生活在中国的人就这么可悲吗？难道只要不“捕”就可以任意地侵犯吗？难道底线就在一个“捕”字上头吗？
这是一起侵犯人权的事件，希望引起广泛的关注。我们要求立刻给孙文广教授送还电脑。对于这一侵犯人权的事件，公安要作出负责的交代。
（2006-5-26于山东大学附中）
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乐队的演出。
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●洛杉矶盖特博物馆馆长称将尽力把该馆收集的部分珍贵的古希腊艺术品归还给希腊。
●大英博物馆向电视游戏节目敞开大门，决赛场将设在马克思当年学习过的阅览室。
