"Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe Death: October 7, 1849, Baltimore, MD
There is much mystery surrounding the death of Edgar Allan Poe. According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore’s website, no one knows what happened to him until he was found in an Irish tavern named Gunners Hall on October 3rd, “stupefied with drink and wearing badly fitting trousers, a soiled and crumpled shirt, a dirty hat and an expression of vacant stupidity.” It looked as if he had sold his own clothes to buy drink. He was taken to the Washington Medical College hospital in a carriage and arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon in a stupor. By the early morning hours, he was delirious, pale and sweating profusely, and talking incessantly to imaginary things on the walls of the room. He seems to have remained in this state until three in the morning of October 7th, a Sunday, when he appeared to relax, said quietly 'Lord, help my poor soul', and died. He was buried with little ado in Baltimore's Presbyterian Cemetery. Hearing the news in France, Charles Baudelaire commented that Poe's death was 'almost a suicide, a suicide prepared for a long time'. The J. Paul Getty Museum expresses, “Despite being acknowledged as one of America's greatest writers of poetry and short stories, Poe's life remains shrouded in mystery, with conflicting accounts about poverty, alcoholism, drug use, and the circumstances of his death in 1849. “ Now the writings of Edgar Allan Poe are spread throughout schools and nations a stepping-stone in one’s journey to literary greatness.