Edgar Allan Poe (1808-1849) is the father of the mystery story, the inventor of psychological horror, and an early writer of science fiction. His works have inspired countless writers for over a century and a half. Some of these disciples include: Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. P. Lovecraft, and Robert Bloch. Add to these knowing admirers the legions of writers who craft short fiction, not knowing that the Man From Baltimore perfected that medium.
As an innovator Poe had no match in America. He contributed important works to several genres, though his reputation is first and foremost for horror tales. Poe did not create the movement known as “The Gothic”. That was done by Horace Walpole in 1764 with The Castle of Otranto. What Poe did was to take the elements of the Gothic, which are often unconnected and uncontrolled, and gave them a new direction, that of examining the mind as it is affected by horror, rather than dark Byronic men chasing young virgins around moldy old castles, seeing outre things which are later explained away, however poorly .
Poe also established the short story as a form. Novels and vignettes were common before Poe but he standardized the expectations for what is a “short story”. And as he did this, he also created the Mystery with one story in particular, “The Murder in the Rue Morgue” (Graham’s Magazine 1841). Poe creates the detective, C. August Dupin. He creates the impossible crime or locked room Mystery, the horror-crime, and gives in the resolution, the logical answer with fair play. It is from this well-spring that Sherlock Holmes and every detective to follow will be born. The Children of Poe. Without Poe, there would be no Hound of the Baskervilles, no “Little Grey Cells”. It starts with a murder in a French hovel.
Strangely though, it is often not Poe’s characters which people remember or copy. Of all his creations, only C. Auguste Dupin has had any real literary life as a character, featured in works like The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe (1997) by George Egon Hatvary. The people in Poe’s fiction are generally vague, colorless phantoms that wander through a landscape of dread and sin, the landscape of Poe’s psyche. It is this fact that allowed Vincent Price to play multiple roles in the Corman films of the 1960’s.
Perhaps because of this lack of colorful characterization, the author himself has proven more palatable to modern writers as a character himself. Poe leads a dreary but intriguing life, as he wrote voluminously for a mere pittance, moving from editing and criticism, winning enemies at every stop. It is amazing that anyone remembers Poe at all, with the work of Rev. Griswold and his other detractors during and after his death. Poe’s fame was cemented by two things: the poem, “The Raven” and the admiration of the French, writers like Baudelaire, who kept his memory alive while Poe’s home country passed him over for others like Longfellow and Hawthorne.
But Poe has survived and unlike other early American writers has been immortalized in fiction many times. (And now film. John Cusack played him well in The Raven (2012). Each attempt to use Poe as a character has examined our ideas of the man, though often different aspects of one who had so many contradictory elements within the same life.
The first person to use Poe in a story was Douglass Sherley in “The Valley of Unrest” (1883), a title taken from one of Poe’s poems. Working from reminiscences of old school friends, Sherley creates an odd alternate history for the poem of the title involving an expedition for treasure. This story was largely forgotten by readers and critics until 1969 when Sam Moskowitz revived it.
“My Adventure With Edgar Allan Poe” by Julian Hawthorne also appeared before 1900 in 1891. This son of another famous American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne (and contemporary of Poe’s) tells how he met Poe, strangely resurrected from death, in a restaurant. The again-living Poe has taken a job as a banker’s secretary and lives a quiet life. Julian asks him to return to writing but Poe has lots the passion for poetry, the interest in the macabre. Several weeks after their meeting Poe dies again and Hawthorne has no real regrets. The Poe he knew and loved never returned from the grave. This story is the first to suggest a resurrection of Poe. Walter de la Mare, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury and August Derleth would later do the same with different results.
“In Which the Author and His Character Are Well Met” from Seaports in the Moon, a collection of stories about famous writers by Vincent Starrett (1928) brings us into the 20th Century. Starrett’s tale follows Poe in his last days returning to the home of his grand-father in search of a treasure, an elixir of youth. Starrett blends phantoms with real folks until you don’t know who is real or not.
The next person to resurrect Poe from the grave was ghost story writer Walter de la Mare in “Revenant” (The Wind Blows Over, 1936), in which Poe’s ghost listens to a lecture on his life before lashing the professor for his conclusions.
The first to use Poe in a commercial Pulp story was Manly Wade Wellman, a regular in Weird Tales in the 1930’s-50’s. “When It Was Moonlight” (February 1940) appeared in another famous pulp though, John W. Campbell’s Unknown. The plot concerns Poe doing research for “The Premature Burial”. A local Baltimore woman was said to have been revived after weeks of interment. Poe seeks the family, Gauber, at a vacant-looking house. The wife, Elva, proves to be a vampire, resurrected by moonlight. Poe finds her husband, John, locked in a cell in the basement, food for the hungry blood-sucker. Poe takes the man’s place in a trick that traps her in the light-less cell, where the moon can not reach her to power her evil deeds. Poe seals the room with mud, giving him the idea for his next masterpiece, “The Black Cat”.
“When It Was Moonlight” is both a literary fantasy (one of Wellman’s fortes) as well as an interesting variation on the vampire legend. Wellman’s Poe is likable, but down-cast, like many pulp heroes during the Depression, one adventure away from starvation. Wellman, a scholar of 19th Century America, uses the facts about Poe to create sympathy, to explain eccentric behavior, and to heighten suspense. Wellman never lectures, but tells a fun, fast and accurately detailed story.
Ray Bradbury, obviously a Poe fan, uses Poe’s legacy in “The Exiles” (as “The Mad Wizards of Mars”, Macleans‘, September 15, 1949) and “Usher II” (as “Carnival of Madness” Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1950) but only the first story features Poe himself. The writer has been banished to Mars and will exist only as long as his works do. He and the other immortal authors wait for the march of time to erase them for good.
“The Gentleman from Paris” (Ellery Queen Magazine, April 1950) is often cited as the first story to feature Poe but that is only true if you look at Mystery stories. John Dickson Carr, who gave us Dr. Gideon Fell, takes us back to 19th Century America through the eyes of a Frenchman, a relative of the Marquis de Lafayette. He follows a strange little man who calls himself Dupin but is actually a certain author we all know. The story was the basis for the film The Man With a Cloak (1951) starring Joseph Cotten as Dupin.
“The Man Who Collected Poe” (Famous Fantastic Mysteries, October 1951) by Robert Bloch features a man who has reanimated Poe and forces him to create new works for his collection. Bloch has fun making up titles that never were like “The Worm of Midnight” and The Further Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. This piece was filmed in Torture Garden (1967). Bloch has a special connection to Poe in that he finished Poe’s last story “The Lighthouse” and received the Edgar Award for Psycho. Appropriate, yes?
Another alumnus of the Lovecraft/Weird Tales Circle as well as the Mystery writer of the Solar Pons series, August Derleth, used Poe again in a completely different way. “The Dark Brotherhood” (Arkham House, 1966) is a posthumous collaboration with H. P. Lovecraft (Derleth working with ideas from Lovecraft’s “Everyday Book”. The results are not always to purists’ tastes, but “The Dark Brotherhood” is a competent tale.) The story concerns Arthur Phillips, a thinly disguised Lovecraft, who lives his life in the dark hours. On one of his nocturnal walks he and Susan Dexter, his quasi-girlfriend, meet a man who looks just like Poe. Later they meet others, no less than seven Poes coming to Phillips’ house to give him a vision of weird creatures in another universe. With a little digging Phillips locates an abandoned house filled with weird machinery and the sleeping Poes.
“Richmond, Late September 1849” (Fantastic, February 1969) by Fritz Leiber offers a horror writer’s version of Poe’s death, when a strange woman comes to Poe claiming to be the sister of his admirer, Charles Baudelaire. She is, in fact, Death, come to claim him. Vincent Starrett laid the groundwork for this idea back in 1928.
Also from 1969 and specially written for Sam Moskowitz’s The Man Who Called Himself Poe is Edmond Hamilton’s “Castaway”. In this short tale, a woman named Lalu, claiming to be possessing the body of a Miss Donsel, tells Poe he is actually a being from the future named Yann, who has also taken possession of a man’s body. Unfortunately for Yann, he has taken Edgar Allan Poe’s body and the writer’s mind and soul are stronger, causing Yann to forget himself. His future personality acts as a kind of muse for the writer inspiring tales such as “The Tale of the Ragged Mountains” and “The Domain of Arnheim”. Hamilton very cleverly steals pieces of Poeannia to support the idea.
The second novel to use Poe as its central figure was Poe Must Die (1976) by Marc Olden. (The first was A Singular Conspiracy (1974) by Barry Perowne.) This excellent first novel won Olden the Edgar in 1976. This long adventure-oriented novel takes Poe to Europe and other places he never traveled. Olden’s Poe is likeable and his historical details on 19th Century America make this book fascinating.
Poe would appear again in the prologue of Usher’s Passing (1982) by Robert R. McCammon. This book, unlike the others mentioned here, only features Poe in a short cameo, but is thematically a continuation from Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”. McCammon supposes that the Ushers were in fact a real family (Poe misrepresenting them in his tale based on gossip) that continues into modern times through Roderick’s brother. The progeny of the noble line is even more bizarre than the Roderick and Madeline.
McCammon’s prologue features the latter-day Poe, the dying alcoholic on the verge of death. Hudson Usher has sought him out after the publication of Poe’s story. Usher is powerful and violent man, but he can not beat the dying writer because of his weakened condition. McCammon’s facts are as well researched and enhancing as Wellman’s or Carr’s.
The last appearance of the Baltimore Poet I shall mention (and there are many more — see below) is in the juvenile mystery novel, The Man Who Was Poe (1994) by Avi. The novel’s protagonist is a young boy named Edmund Brimmer and his sister “Sis”, two children very much like Poe and his sister and in similar straits. There mother has died and they are seeking their father. Edmund hires a mysterious Mr. Dupin to help them solve the mystery of their lost family member, but the children find “Mr. Dupin” unreliable and morose. Poe solves the mystery and Avi provides an uncharacteristically downer ending for a juvenile novel (but not a Poe story).
Other Stories and Novels featuring Poe:
The Last Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe: The Troy Dossier (1978) by Manny Meyers
“In the Sunken Museum” by Gregory Frost (Twilight Zone Magazine, May 1981)
The Brentford Trilogy (1981-2009)by Robert Rankin
“The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe” (Interzone, Spring 1982) by Angela Carter
“No Spot of Ground” (1989) by Walter John Williams
The Hollow Earth (1990) by Rudy Rucker
The Black Throne (1990) by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen
Route 666 (1993) by Kim Newman (writing as Jack Yeovil)
The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Stephen Marlowe (1995)
Nevermore (1995) by William Hjortsberg
The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe (1997) by George Egon Hatvary
Nevermore (1999), The Hum Bug (2001), The Mask of Red Death (2004), and The Tell-Tale Corpse (2006) novels by Harold Schechter
Lenore: The Last Narrative of Edgar Allan Poe (2002) by Frank Lovelock
The American Boy (2003) by Andrew Taylor
Edgar Allan Poe’s San Francisco: Terror Tales of the City (2005) by Joseph Covino Jr.
The Poe Shadow (2006) by Matthew Pearl
The Pale Blue Eye (2006) by Louis Bayard
Supernatural: Nevermore (2007) by Keith R. A. Candido
The Blackest Bird (2007)by Joel Rose
Edgar Allan Poe on Mars (2007) by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier
Wild Nights! (2008) by Joyce Carol Oates
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2010) by Seth Grahame-Smith
Finding Poe (2012) by Leigh M. Lane
More to come, I am sure…
I was able to update this article thanks to a great book edited by Sam Moskowitz entitled The Man Who Called Himself Poe (Doubleday, 1969) (or A Man Called Poe in paperback). It featured nine tales (some of which I had mentioned previously, but several I had not) as well as stories written by Poe and Robert Bloch and six poems in which Poe and H. P. Lovecraft meet. Check it out if you can find a copy.
