Edgar Allan Poe Museum

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The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, December 2009

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond , Virginia is a literary museum for the American writer Edgar Allan Poe . It commemorates the many years Poe lived in Richmond, cherishes his memory and is dedicated to the reception and exploration of his life and work.

The museum has one of the most extensive collections of Poe's manuscripts and letters, numerous first editions of his works, pictures, photos, illustrations and memorabilia from the personal estate of the author and his family. The museum also documents everyday life and history of Richmond in the first half of the 19th century.

History of the museum

The property on which the museum is located already belonged to the German-born silversmith Jacob Ege in 1742. Dendrochronological research has shown that the house - the oldest surviving building in Richmond - was built in 1754. Samuel Ege, the son of Jacob Ege, was listed as the owner of the house in a tax register in 1782. When the Marquis de La Fayette returned to Richmond in 1824 - the site of one of his great successes as a general in the American Revolutionary War - his carriage was accompanied by a unit of young volunteers, the Junior Morgan Riflemen. One of the riflemen, 15-year-old Edgar Allan Poe, was stationed as an honor guard in front of the Eges house when La Fayette visited it. The house was owned by the Ege family until 1911.

Inspired by Poe's 100th birthday in 1909, a group of Richmond residents campaigned to publicly honor Poe in the city. The proposal to honor Poe with a memorial on Monument Avenue - a boulevard with the monuments of Robert E. Lee , Jeb Stuart , Jefferson Davis and other representatives of the southern states - was rejected by the city because Poe was considered too disreputable . As a result, the initiative to found a Poe Museum arose. The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities acquired the house in 1911 .

The museum is located in the historic center of Richmond, not far from Poe's apartments and his first place of work, the Southern Literary Messenger ( none of the buildings exist anymore). The grave of his mother Eliza Poe in the cemetery of St John's Church is also in the vicinity, as is the home of his childhood sweetheart and later fiancé Elmira Shelton (née Royster).

Initially the museum was called "Edgar Allan Poe Shrine". The opening was announced on October 7, 1921 as follows:

Today (...), on the seventy-second anniversary of the poet's death, the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine was completed. The initial cost was about $ 20,000. If the poet should still follow worldly things, he would be happy that a permanent and appropriate memorial was finally set in his memory.

collection

The Poe Museum consists of four buildings. The exhibition objects illuminate different aspects of the life, work and impact of Edgar Allan Poe. In the living room of the front building you can see furniture from houses that Poe and his sister Rosalie lived in.

Another building has a five-and-a-half meter model of Richmond that shows the city as it looked in Poe's time. You can also see Poe's cot and furniture from the house of his foster parents. The Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building houses numerous early and first editions of Poe's works, including an 1845 print of his most famous poem, The Raven, and one of only twelve surviving copies of Poe's first collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems . Also on display are a vest from Poe, a suitcase and walking stick that he owned, and a lock of his hair. Manuscripts, daguerreotypes and portraits of Poe can also be seen. The "Exhibit Building", the fourth building of the museum, is used for temporary exhibitions. a. deal with Poe's impact and his continued existence in popular culture .

In the courtyard between the buildings is a garden, the design of which was inspired by Poe's poem To One in Paradise . Weddings take place here regularly.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ APVA: Old Stone House ( Memento from June 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b Scott Bergman, Sandi Bergman: Haunted Richmond: The Shadows of Shockoe , Charleston 2007, p 102 Google Books
  3. ^ Thompson Prettyman Ege: History and genealogy of the Ege family in the United States, 1738-1911 , New York, 1911 Google Books
  4. ↑ Keshia A. Case, Christopher P. Semtner: Edgar Allan Poe in Richmond , Charleston etc., 2009, p. 31 ISBN 978-0-7385-6714-3
  5. ↑ Kenneth Silverman : Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance , New York, 1991, pp. 24f. ISBN 0060923318
  6. ^ Harry Lee Poe, Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories , New York, 2008: ISBN 978-1-4351-0469-3
  7. ^ Mary E. Phillips: Edgar Allan Poe: The Man , Chicago, 1926. pp. 1524-1525
  8. ↑ Lloyd Rose, " Yo, Poe: In Richmond, a museum rises from the dead, " The Washington Post, May 10, 1998.
  9. ↑ Homepage of the Poe Museum - Weddings ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.poemuseum.org

Coordinates: 37 ° 31 ′ 55.6 "  N , 77 ° 25 ′ 33.6"  W.