6 Theories on the Mysterious Death of Edgar Allen Poe

Six Theories on the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe so let's get right to it Edgar Allan Poe was the Stephen King of his day a master poet and author of mystery and the macabre to this day his name alone evokes a chill down one spine among his most popular Works were murders in the room org and mask of the Red Death his life may have been cut short but it was filled with Brilliance Scandal tragedy and heartbreak perhaps fittingly Poe's death was also long been cloaked in mystery with competing Twisted theories as to how and why in 1849 he vanished for a week then passed away at only 40. Poe was forced to drop out of the University of Virginia due to increasing gambling deaths after a short time in the military he went to West Point but was ultimately kicked out of there as well Paul moved to Baltimore Maryland which at the time was a squalid city of grime and Grave robbers that proved the perfect inspiration for Macabre and horror stories he worked at various newspapers and magazines and then and began to write and publish his own poems and short stories in 1835 Edgar married his 13 year old cousin Virginia clam he was 27 at the time they were married for 11 years and she died of consumption AKA tuberculosis at only 24. the death of Virginia sent Edgar into a long downward spiral Poe wrote that watching her deteriorate had rented him severely depressed and insane never a stranger to the bottle her sickness only magnified his drinking it was during his wife's five-year-long illness and after her death that Poe wrote some of his darkest Tales including his famous Grim poem The Raven in 1845. pose run as a successful author and poet was relatively short he popularized the horror genre with stories like the Pit and the Pendulum and Fall of the House of Usher long before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes he created the mystery genre in 1841 with the stories about French detectives C Augustine DuPont and the purloin letter and The Telltale Heart in 1849 Poe has begun to turn a corner both mentally and financially his career was better than ever he was now a famous author who drew large audiences at his readings he took his doctor's medical advice and was now sober he'd even become a member of the sons of temperance Edgar proposed to his first love Elmira Royster Shelton who he had fallen in love with while in college they are planning to marry after he took a short speaking trip to Philadelphia and New York on September 27 1849 Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond by train Bound for New York City he got as far as Baltimore before suddenly Vanishing for nearly a week he never made it to Philadelphia where he was to edit a collection of poems nor to New York City for his speaking engagement he was then to escort his aunt back to Richmond for his wedding to Elmira pose never to leave Baltimore for five days his whereabouts were and continued to be entirely unknown he turned up on October 3rd in a Shabby Delirious State outside a Tavern called Gunners Hall this is the first anyone had heard or seen of him since leaving Richmond it was raining on October 3rd when Joseph Walker a typesetter for the Baltimore Sun headed out to Gunners Hall to vote it was election day and Gunners Hall was a polling station for the fourth ward Walker found a man delirious and dressed in cheap ill-fitting clothes lying in the gutter the poor soul was semi-conscious and barely able to move Joseph Walker realized that man was the famous Edgar Allan Poe Walker knew the famous poet shouldn't be dressed as he was Nor lying in a gutter so he offered to help he asked Poe if there was anyone nearby that he could contact on his behalf o mentioned a magazine editor named Joseph Snodgrass Walker mealy wrote Snodgrass a quick note urging his assistant and sent it by messenger it read to Dr J E Snodgrass Baltimore City October 3rd 1849. Dear Sir there is a gentleman either the worst for wear who goes under the cogman of Edgar a Poe and who appears in great distress and he says he is acquainted with you he is in need of immediate assistance yours and haste Joseph W Walker Snodgrass arrived and took Poe to Washington College Hospital very stayed alone in a windowless room with an attended physician Dr John Moran the week he spent missing and the unreliability of newspapers of the day all contributed to speculation as to what had happened to him he never regained enough Lucid Consciousness to explain what had happened he spent his final days in fits of delirium plagued by hallucinations according to Dr Moran Poe repeatedly called out for Reynolds a name who to this day remains a mystery Edgar Allan Poe died on Sunday October 7th 1849. his last words were Lord help my poor soul perhaps fittingly with Poe's death his last great mystery was born theories about his cause began cropping up almost immediately there are no remaining records of his hospitalization pose listed as dying of phrenitis or congestion of the brain it was a polite 19th century term often used for alcoholism or opioid addiction but in reality no one knows for sure a public debate arose surrounding Poe's death focus on whether or not the writer was a drunkard that theory was backed up by Rufus Wilmot Griswold a literary critic and one of Poe's leading Rivals he wrote Poe's New York Tribune obituary that was picked up by newspapers around the country it read the quote this announcement will startle many but few will be grieved by it the poet was known personally or by reputation in all this country he had readers in England and Continental Europe but he had few or no friends and the regrets of his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic Stars end quote Griswold was the executor of his literary State and became a major figure in the mystery he used his position to write a cruel biography that suggested the author was also an opium addict as well as a drunkard foreign grass wrote that when he once found Poe at a bar the author was utterly stupefied with liquor and could only produce mere incoherent mutterings Poe was indeed a lightweight when it came to liquor when he did drink it didn't take much for him to fall into a stupor he wasn't remembered as a heavy drinker except during his wife's prolonged illness and following her death on the advice from a Doctor Poe had pledged his sobriety and joined the sons of temperance along with Joseph Snodgrass poets spent years crafting the image of a man well-versed in the macabre it's certainly fitting that since he invented the detective Thriller he left this with the real life mystery on his death so given all this what did Kill Edgar Allan Poe there was no autopsy performed to go back to and so for over a hundred years speculation has raged on in addition to medical causes there are also theories that something more nefarious took place so let us take a look at the six most likely theories number one alcohol poke couldn't handle his liquor after after a glass or two of wine or ale he was staggering drunk his sister had the same hereditary problem had fallen ill before leaving Richmond after making a recovery he was told by his attending physician that another such attack could prove fatal Poe replied that well if people would not tempt me I would not fall suggesting that the illness was brought on by about of drinking after falling off the temperance wagon at the time Poe's acquaintances seemed convinced he did indeed fall to Temptation and drink himself to death his close friend JP Kennedy said quote died from the effects of a debash he likely fell in with some companion where he was seduced by the bottle which he had renounced some time ago the consequence was fever delirium and Madness and in just a few days the termination of his sad days in the hospital poor pole a bright but unsteady light has been awfully quenched end quote this Theory fails to explain his five-day disappearance however or his second-hand close it was nonetheless a popular Theory propagated by both Snodgrass and Griswold after Poe's death Snodgrass even gave temper and speeches across the country blaming Poe's death on binge drinking Theory two cooping voter fraud was common in Baltimore Around the mid-1800s unscrupulous politicians were known to employ cooping the practice of hiring local goons to kidnap random men on the street they then Force drugs or alcohol in them then send them to the polls to vote again and again they changed their clothes every time in order to insure themselves a new vote given that Poe was found on an election day outside gunter's Hall a polling place in stranger's clothes has given this Theory some plausibility and acceptance over the years repeat voters were given alcohol either forcefully before or as a reward after if Poe had been forced to drink and vote multiple times in a cooping scheme that would explain his abandoned ragged and semi-conscious State Theory number three rabies some have speculated that Poe died of rabies as the symptoms match his Delirious decline in the hospital this is in part based on Dr Moran's accounts who said that Poe's Madness had Ebbs and flows with periods of looseness in between spikes of mania Moran noted that Poe drank little water which also matches up with the symptoms of rabies Dr Moran is something of an unreliable narrator however because he wrote down these observations many years later rabies symptoms are similar lethargy and confusion with a rapid downward spiral towards delirium hallucinations and Rapid shallow breathing within four days the average length of survival after the onset of serious symptoms Poe was dead rabies was a fairly common thing in the 19th century with no vaccines yet but without DNA evidence it's impossible to say there was also no mention of any animal bites on him in fact it may have well been the flu that advanced into pneumonia before his faithful trip Poe visited that Richmond physician complaining of illness his fiancee noted that he had a fever and he didn't think he should travel the doctor also told him he was too sick to take such a journey it was raining in Baltimore when Poe was found the cold rain may have exasperated the flu and eventually led to pneumonia the high fever might account for his hallucinations and confusion Theory number four poisoning in 1999 the public health researchers argued that Poe's death was a result of carbon monoxide poisoning would have come from the coal gas that was commonly used in lamps for indoor lighting during the 19th century they took preserved clippings of composed hair and tested them for certain heavy metals that would reveal the presence of coal gas the test was inconclusive however leading historians to discredit this particular Theory the test did reveal elevated levels of mercury imposed system they were most likely elevated as a result of the cholera epidemic that he'd lived through in July of 1849 in Philadelphia post-doctor there prescribed calamel or Mercury chloride mercury poisoning could explain some of the pose hallucinations and delirium before his death however the level of mercury found in Poe's hair was still 30 times below the level consistent with mercury poisoning Theory number five a brain tumor a more modern theory states the author succumbed to a brain tumor which causes symptoms and behavior before death Poe was buried in an unmarked grave in Baltimore's Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery 26 years later a stature was erected honoring Poe near the graveyard's entrance post coffin was dug up and his remains exhumed in order to be moved to a new place of honor after two decades of Decay post coffin fell apart as workers tried to move it little remained of Poe's body but the workers did remark on a strange feature of Paul's skull a mass appeared to be rolling around inside newspapers of the day claimed that the cerebral Mass was Poe's poor brain diminished yet somehow still intact after 26 years however there's no way that his brain would still exist what could linger in a skull was a hard shrunken brain tumor a forensic pathologist said that a tumor can calcify after death into a hard Mass a New York physician once told Poe he had a lesion on his brain that caused his adverse reactions to alcohol and finally Theory number six murderer most foul another story says that at the instigation of a woman who considered herself injured by his writing Ruffians were hired to clearly beat him senseless to the point where his brain fever followed another story went like this while in Baltimore Paul ran into some old friends from West Point they convinced him to join him for just one drink Poe unable to handle his liquor became madly drunk after a single glass of champagne after he left his friends he staggered the streets in the days in his drunken State he was robbed and beaten by more Ruffians then left Delirious in the gutter until he was found in the rain the next day yet another salicious theory was that Poe was murdered by the brothers of his wealthy fiancee Elmira Shelton it claims that Poe actually made it to Philadelphia where he was ambushed by her three brothers they warned Edgar not to marry their widowed sister frightened by the threat Poe disguised himself in shabby clothes and hid for a week before heading back to Richmond to get married her brothers followed po to Baltimore however beat him up forced him to drink whiskey which they knew would send Poe into his final spiral towards death well all these theories are Darkly entertaining if they're not very plausible or persuasive so there you have it none of the theories fully explain post-sad and pitiful end most likely pose cause of death resulted from a combination of unfortunate factors his works of mystery and Gothic are have been made into stage plays and numerous Hollywood movies over the years there was even a fictional account of Poe's death in the 2012 movie The Raven starring actor John Cusack as Poe in death Poe ironically embraced the old saying that life imitates art with a mysterious demise worthy of his most Eerie Gothic horror after over 170 years people still speculate about what actually happened during that missing week in the life of Edgar Allan Poe will we ever know the truth perhaps it's best summed up by the poet himself quoth The Raven Nevermore

Channel: LOST IN HISTORY - Paul Andrews, historical writer

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Length: 18min 32sec (1112 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2022