As noted by PhiloBiblos, "The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston" opens at the Boston Public Library on December 17th. The festivities kick off with the latest chapter of the Great Poe Debate as to what city can claim the tortured writer as its own.About the image: Edgar Allan Poe, NYPL
3 comments:
I've been following the Great Poe Debate with some interest, but I have yet to see one point addressed--of the various places where he lived, which city would Poe himself have liked to claim as his own?
So far as I can tell, the only one of his many homes he felt a real bond with was his Fordham cottage, but I guess the Bronx doesn't have a dog in this particular hunt.
My brother once took me to a bar in Newark, DE, where one of its claims to fame was that Poe had once been thrown out of it. :-)
As an adult, I don't think Poe ever had a home he loved, especially after his wife died. He did consider himself a Virginian, but I don't think it's likely he ever would have settled in the South again. He was not welcome there. Had Poe lived and been able to start his own magazine, I think he would have settled wherever was most conducive to publishing it. After his time in Baltimore, Poe always lived where he could work.
I've always wanted Richmond and New York to get involved in the Poe War, but they've never expressed any interest. I have the feeling the Richmonders don't find this whole fight very "amusing." And it's hard to get anyone in NY to notice anything outside of NY. Not to mention, the Fordham cottage has done very very little to celebrate the Poe Bicentennial.
Philly Poe Guy
http://bibliothecary.squarespace.com/
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