Edgar Allan Poe’s Baltimore home named a literary landmark
Noted American author Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic works went largely unappreciated all through his life. However, after his death, his works have managed to inspire generations of authors to take up writing horror novels. The celebrated literary icon’s talent has earned him no fewer than three memorial sites.
The newest of the bunch has just been ordained a Literary Landmark, in America, that too on what would’ve been the minister of the macabre’s 211th birthday. Poe was never one for parties, though.
The Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore,USA, where the author briefly lived in the 1830s before returning and dying under mysterious circumstances on October 7, 1879, has served as a museum for more than 70 years and a National Historic Landmark for nearly 50 years.
The house is the first literary site in Maryland, USA, to be included in the registry, the organisation said. Previous dedications have included the homes of Tennessee Williams, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and William Faulkner.
The master of Gothic horror lived at the Baltimore house as an adult from 1833 to 1835. It became a museum in 1949 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971. Poe didn’t live in the unassuming red-brick flat for long, but his impact on the city has manifested in peculiar ways. His most famous poem is named for a raven, and, 100-plus year later, so is Baltimore’s NFL team. It’s where he got his start in writing, and now, the city celebrates “Poe
Tober” in October to honour the spook antics he might’ve enjoyed.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, into a ScotsIrish family in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to David Poe Jr and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. The author is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly the ones about the macabre and mystery. He is also regarded as a central figure of romanticism in the US and American Literature in general, and he was among the first to write detective and crime fiction in the US.