A MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES: THE DEATH AND LIFE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE (Dawidziak, 2023)

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Like most possessed of a knowledge of Poe and his work "learned" in high school English classes with the since-then goal to read all of him for pleasure and not for credit, I knew the mythologized textbook basics: horror, mysterious death, wore black, booze-hound, mustache. Dawidziak's work here, a compulsively-readable synthesis of all of the best knowledge of Poe – his life, his work, his death – should be considered a public service, as it systematically dismantles the assumed (horseshit) myths and legends surrounding Poe to reveal him as not only the flawed and profoundly human human that he was, but as a genius of the first degree (who also, it would seem, knew it quite well): an artist at home with and who made high art of nearly every genre he touched (metaphysics seeming to be the exception – though I want to read EUREKA, too) and, while obviously beaten down (as evinced in the string of daguerrotypes included), endured a seemingly endless string of personal and professional – he was nothing if not his own worst enemy and, according to more than one contemporary, a pain in the ass – tragedies and setbacks yet somehow emerged with a sense of hope, humor, and belief intact – until there was no more to be had.

Reproducing a passage from Dawidziak's intro here because it perfectly sums up the remarkable portrait Dawidziak creates here:

"The real Poe considered himself first and foremost a poet. The real Poe was best known in his lifetime as first a tremendously tough critic, second a poet, and third as the author of tales of mystery and horror. Our perception of Poe has reversed that order. But Poe also wrote a substantial number of satires, hoaxes, and humorous pieces, and let's face it, nobody thinks of Edgar Allan Poe as a comedy writer. The man had quite a sense of humor, but that doesn't fit the myth. 'The popular image of Poe is so far off the mark that it borders on the ludicrous,' Poe and Twain scholar Dennis Eddings said. 'Poe had a delicious sense of humor. He loved cats, a true test of character, as Mark Twain recognized. And he took his art seriously at the same time he made fun of it, surely a sign of a well-balanced mind.'"

I want to believe that Poe would have had a hell of a blog.

Won't add more here, but yes, the book does postulate the most likely answer as to what caused his death at 40 though with the caveat that there's no way of truly knowing 174 years later. An essential work of biography.

My complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here.