Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

by John Evangelist Walsh

Book Overview

With the publication of three short tales in the 1840s, Poe invented the detective story. Then his own sudden and bizarre death, still unsolved after 150 years, created a real-life mystery as tantalizing as any of his famous stories. Was it epilepsy? Lawless thugs? A diabetic coma? His heart ? Alcohol? Poe departed this life in the best mystery-novel style. While traveling alone from Richmond, Virginia, to New York City, he disappeared for nearly...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813526051
• ISBN13: 9780813526058
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 199 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.8"
• Grade Range: Grades 10 to 12

Customer Reviews

Another theory on Poe's demise.Follow the tale of Poe's moustache.was it there or wasn't it?

An interesting Poe murder theory.true Poe did make alot of enemies and even if it is gossip it can still hurt a persons reputation,especially if the gossipers themselves are socially prominent,"In my opinion of course Mr.Poe is a(gold digging,womanizing,drunkard-personally i respect the mans' works but can't stand him as a person)"The book spends some time going over alot of these rumours that even if untrue do seem to stick.Silverman in his book suggested that Poe may have been impotent,but this work turns him into a probable lecher(all rumour however)I am convinced that he was engaged to Elmira Shelton(a wealthy widow and childhood sweetheart of Poe) at the time of his Baltimore/Richmond/ Philly mishaps.Poe's ego would make him feel justified in such a high stake game for after all as poe would remind one,"I wrote "The Raven" .The book strongly suggests that Ms. Shelton"s 3 brothers were anything but impressed with Mr. Poe and may have engineered his unfortunate mishaps resulting in his demise.The Shelton brothers and both of Elmira Sheltons'adult children wanted nothing to do with Poe and may have seen his engagement as an attempt by Poe to "land a cash cow" for his pet projects.It's all speculation but it could fit as logically as the bunk about the election day "cooping" which the author proves false to at least my satisfaction.the pictures in the book all relate to this detective story. Is the stern face of Elmira Shelton the result of a stern Puritanic faith or is she hiding a terrible secret?Kissinger always said "even the true paranoic has real enemies",and Poe would definitely have made headlines for todays tabloids.Remember he married his 13 year old first cousin and then the rumours of alcohol and opiates not to mention the harsh criticisms of other writers that could be studied by those wishing to give "the perfect insult"..I always theorized that maybe Poe had a diabetic episode in Baltimore that left him at the mercy of urban predators who stole his clothes,then beat and robbed him.It never entered my mind before reading this book that maybe someone was hired for the job and Poe became only too aware of it.DT's have little to nothing to do with this book.It is a detective story that Poe himself would have been proud to write.

Interesting and Compelling

Those who take issue with John Evangelist Walsh's "Midnight Dreary" are, I think, missing the point. Certainly, there is truth to the suggestion that this is two books, one, a detailed recreation of the last days of Poe and two, the author's attempt to make sense of the random data and form a reasonable explanation.In the first instance, Walsh succeeds beyond one's expectations. I ahve read dozens of biographies of Poe and have not come across a good deal of this material. Letters, journal entries, recollections of personal interviews - Walsh succeeds in bringing extant material to light.In the second endeavor, Walsh has not been as successful. In my opinion, he falls into every theorists greatest trap - attempting to bend the facts to fit his hypothesis. In several cases, Walsh accuses his subjects of faulty memory and/or outright embellishment. "Such and such can not have occurred on this date, but if we assume that the wrier was incorrect and it actually occurred on blah-blah date, then it all makes sense." No. No and no. As observers of history, we do not have the luxury of assuming those who lived it were forgetful liars.Nonetheless, this IS an interesting book and it is a treasure trove of data for those interested in Poe's death. Additionally, it is written in an interesting, conversational style that I found quite readable. I enjoyed this book, as a reader and as an historian.

Now I can stop guessing..."Forevermore"

John Walsh's book is certainly a good read and the only people who seem to have trouble with it are people who don't understand that all the pieces of the puzzle aren't available and never will be. In situations like that, good investigative work has to be used--along with a good understanding of your subject and the times to make up situations not known. John Walsh certainly has both. I was thoroughly enthralled by his storytelling and even more impressed by his deductions and his careful telling of where he got his information. Of course, there are some things he doesn't know so he deduced them based on the knowledge at hand. If done intelligently (as done here), it will convince the reader. I think Edgar Allen Poe would rest easy knowing someone finally straightened out his last days.

A compelling read

I just finished this compelling book here on a sultry Saturday afternoon in August; nothing could have been better. Knowing very little of literary matters or much about E.A. Poe (except The Raven and Annibel Lee in 9th grade), I found this book to be riveting. I had not known of the mystery of his death or any of the theories pertaining to it. But having worked most of my life in mental health as a professional, I found myself more and more, as I sped through the book, asking myself whether this man might have been suffering from mental illness, certainly alcoholism as we know it today. The experiences and symptoms described of Poe by Walsh appear as classic examples of Bipolar Disorder or an agitated Major Depression with psychotic (paranoid) features. People who don't take their medication and who suffer from Major Mental Illness may often be "dually diagnosed" with substance abuse perhaps to self-medicate. The absence of real, tangible evidence in history to support the hypothesis that Poe was followed by Elmira's vindictive brothers during an agitated lost 5 days along the Eastern Seaboard, contributed to my obsessing about the possibility that just maybe Poe suffered from an agitated psychotic depression and had landed in Baltimore that October, 1849 having succumbed to alcohol poisoning. What a fabulous tale, but the sad mystery remains. And what a sad event for American history. And, oh, by the way, I found Walsh's writing to flow like a bounding river.

Check out some super sleuthing

Mr. Walsh presents an intriguing and well thought out solution to the enduring controversy surrounding the death of Edgar Allen Poe. The bare details of his death are fairly well known. He was on a trip from Richmond to New York and was found in Baltimore, apparently drunk and suffering from delirium tremens. Taken to a nearby hospital, Poe died after a week without ever really becoming coherent again. Any number of theories (aside from the obvious) have been put forward ranging from disease to drugging and shanghaiing to vote in the elections going on at the time. The methodology Walsh applies is a new approach to the body of research on Poe's death. He believes that Poe's death was a consequence of a fresh conflict caused by his own actions, rather than self destruction or random violence. Murder was considered a distinct possibility by at least two intimates, although the issue in question may have been an old quarrel or memory of an old feud rather than a proximate one, since it echoes an old controversy for which Poe was called out to a duel. The failure to note and expand on that similarity, and to note the advocates of this scenario were literary people favoring a dramatic end more suited to the contemporary conventions of theater and literature, is one of very few obvious holes in the consideration of the evidence. The bulk of the book, and the jewel of the author's research consists of the presentation, organization and analysis of the relevant evidence, either quoted directly from the sources or summarized. Walsh fits the data against the prevailing theories and finds them lacking in probability. This is a lean and muscular work of historical scholarship. The relentless focus on the scant relevant material is another highlight of this work, there is no padding. The evolution of the witnesses' and researchers' stories closest to the event is also ably chronicled in the book. The accretion and fusing of memory and myth around notorious historical events is interesting all by itself and is well documented by Mr. Walsh. The proposed new solution conforms neatly to my prejudices, in that it is firmly linked to Poe's private life, I tend to believe (as articulated very well by Louise Brooks among others) that the mysteries of biography and history frequently resolve to the mysteries of love and the bedroom or in the hackneyed phrase of the mystery genre `cherchez la femme'. The quality and honesty of his work can be judged from the fact that although he forwards a new twist on the `death by drinking' theory, which oddly enough, depends crucially on an assertion that Poe was not likely to have broken his fresh Temperance Pledge, his work can be read as dialectic against any theory other than death resulting from a sadly typical self destructive drinking binge. The presentation and consideration of the evidence is a model for anyone writing on a topic to imitate. The thesis itself,