Master of Mystery & the Macabre
 
Edgar Allan Poe was an interesting, spooky guy, and one of our favorites at Wistmore. Poe’s longtime literary foe, Rufus Griswold, wrote a scathing biography of Poe after his death (the coward) that was largely untrue. Vengeful over things Poe had written about Griswold, the latter’s postmortem portrait of Poe painted him as a womanizing madman, drug-addled and bereft of both morals and friends.
 
Combined with the dark tone of some of Poe’s work, the biography convinced a public that was more than willing to believe the scandalous depravity of the writer. His death didn't help. 
 
In 1849, Poe went missing for five days and was found "worse for the wear" and delirious in Baltimore. He was taken to the hospital where he died soon after at the age of 40. No autopsy was performed, the cause of death was listed as a vague "congestion of the brain” and he was laid to rest two days later. Experts and scholars have proposed everything from alcoholism to murder, rabies to dipsomania and carbon monoxide poisoning as the reason for his demise, but to this day the cause of Edgar Allan Poe’s death remains a mystery. Could there be a more befitting legacy?
 
Print-quality JPG download, (7200 x 4800px, 300 DPI)
Measures 16"H x 24"W
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