The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

During his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe was a well-known writer and editor, so known for his cutthroat reviews that he was dubbed “Tomahawk Man” (Poetry Foundation). In October 1849, Poe travelled from Richmond, Virginia (where his fiancé resided) to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to assist in editing the work of a little known American poetess. Though he boarded the train, he never arrived.

Three days after leaving Richmond, Poe was found delirious in a gutter, wearing someone else’s tattered clothes, outside of a polling place in Baltimore City, Maryland on election day. Poe was semi-conscious and unable to move.

Theories abound about how the famed writer ended up in such a desperate situation but the mystery has never been solved. Poe never regained consciousness and died in delirious agony moaning the name, “Reynolds!” though no one knew of such a man in Poe’s life.

Poe was buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave in Baltimore City. Twenty-six years later, his remains were exhumed so the writer could be moved to a place of honor beneath a statue erected for him at the front of the cemetery.

The heavily decayed casket crumbled under the stress of the move and fell open. Though little remained of Poe’s body after three decades, workers assisting in the move saw Poe’s skull rolling around with a hard lump still inside.

Even in death the feuds of Poe’s life continued. His famous dispute with fellow American poet, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow was not muted by his untimely death. Longsfellow took the opportunity to have the last word, writing: “Mr. Poe is dead and gone, and I am alive and still writing, and that is the end of the matter.” Also, another rival of Poe’s, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, took the occasion of Poe’s death to publish a “slanted high-profile obituary under a pseudonym, filled with falsehoods that cast him as a lunatic” (Wikipedia). Edgar Allan Poe died at age 40.