Deep into that Darkness Peering
Two stops on the Edgar Allan Poe whistle stop tour:
In 2017, I visited Richmond, Virginia for work. My scheduled meetings didn’t begin until the following morning, so as it was only 3pm, I checked into my hotel and then set out for St. John’s Church where Patrick Henry gave his famous “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech.
St. John’s sits on a hill with a picture-perfect steeple and is surrounded by rows of mossy, mostly indecipherable gravestones. I was the last tour of the day, so an earnest and history-loving man—who shares his full name with a popular cartoon character—gave me the world’s best solo tour. At my pleading, this included a pitch perfect dramatic monologue of Henry’s famous oration.
While touring the grounds outside the ancient church, my guide mentioned that Elizabeth Arnold Poe, EAP’s mom (a popular local actress), was buried in the graveyard. In fact, the Poe Museum was just a couple blocks from the church. As it happens, Richmond is the place EAP lived as an adult, got married, and achieved literary acclaim. It’s a lovely, small museum. They graciously let me buy a ticket 30 minutes before closing and told me to stay as long as I liked. I wandered alone among the buildings, connected by a couple courtyards. I wanted to respect the closing hour, yet miss nothing. I tried reading every plaque, but soon realized I would be there all night if I continued thus.
The feeling of being alone with all this old stuff, all these ghostly objects, relics of the long dead. It started to get to me. A whisper of dread began to creep over my shoulder as I learned more about his tragic life and the real-life inspirations for his most horrific imaginings. In one of the buildings on the back lot, a dusty diorama, covered in glass, displayed a bird’s eye view of Poe’s Richmond, marking each location of importance. Tinny old-fashioned music played on a loop and just as a song finished I heard a squeak down a dark hallway. The unmistakable sound of a door opening, then closing.
“Hello?” I said, my shaky voice betraying my fear. “I’m just about done.” I called out to my unknown companion, assuming the door had been opened by impatient museum staff, long desiring my absence so they could lock up. No voice replied. A chill breeze tickled the back of my neck. I whirled around.
Sitting as still as statues, perched on an ancient steamer trunk, two jet black cats stared at me unblinking. They had not been there before. I would swear to it on my life.
Perhaps it was their otherworldly stillness, because despite all unlikelihood that two identical specters had come to haunt me, I rushed for an exit. Hot summer evening air hit me full in the face as I slowed to pant with fright in the Enchanted Garden. I sank onto a moldy bench and gulped down fresh breath. The outside and the oxygen cleared away the cobwebs within and I started to laugh.
Shortly I learned, safe and sound under the glow of the fluorescent lights in the gift shop, that EAP was a cat lover, and that “Edgar” and “Pluto” loved to say hello to museum guests.
I didn’t take or save any pictures of the museum, unfortunately. But this beautiful raven head necklace was my souvenir.
I highly recommend the Poe Museum. Go to both St. John’s and the museum—but give yourself more time than I did.
Just last week, I noticed a street near my home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was named both West 84th st. and Edgar Allan Poe st.
At the corner of Broadway and 84th, rather high up on the side of a building on the north-west corner, was this plaque:
“Upon this site formerly stood the Brennen Mansion in which resided, from March 1844 to August 1845 Edgar Allan Poe and here during such residence he produced and gave to American Literature and to immortality “The Raven.” In commemoration of the poet, and of the poem, this tablet is placed MCMXXII by The New York Shakespeare Society donors. Appleton Morgan, Albert R. Frey, Otto H. Kahn, Nathan D. Bill, John Drew.”
In case your roman numeral knowledge is fuzzy, MCMXXII is 1922.
Today the building with this plaque hosts an empty storefront. One can just barely make out the word, “COACH.”
In terms of tourism experience, this spot has zero competition with the Poe Museum in Richmond. But if one bleak December, if you find yourself on the Upper West Side, find this corner.
It had just started snowing, but not sticking, and I squinted at the AMC theater across the street to see if I could picture rolling farmland. I stared into the empty store and with my imagination filled it with floor to ceiling bookshelves and roaring fire. A wingback chair positioned at an angle so as to hide the seated narrator, so full of remorse over his lost love Lenore that he believes a bird is talking to him.
Sand-sized snow landed on my eyelashes and the top hem of my face mask. I frowned and squinted and stared and gripped my fists and almost believed.
(This post on EAP inspired me to take literary tourism to Poe. Check out Patry’s blog—it’s great!)
