Hello and welcome to my Victorian nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Mannion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me, there's just something especially intriguing,

creepy, and oddly comforting about horror and mayhem from the 19th century. So, listener discretion

is advised.

Today, we're going to talk about the mystery surrounding the death of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most beloved gothic fiction writers of all time.

He was born in 1809 and died on October 7, 1849. He was only 40 years old. There are almost a dozen common,

semi-common, and just interesting theories about how he actually died. Why are there only theories and no proof whatsoever about his actual cause of death? Well, his death certificate has never been

found. For all we know, it never even existed. And the facts we do know about

his death are very bizarre and confounding. One morning, he was found either in or near a bar. That's still

unclear. He was semi-conscious, reeking of alcohol, wearing clothes that were clearly not his own,

like oversized and mismatched. He was brought to a hospital, but he was so delirious that he couldn't explain what happened to him

other than to yell the name, Reynolds.

It's unclear who this person was, and the last witness who claimed to have been there at the moment of his death

proved himself to be entirely untrustworthy.

So today, I'm going to talk a little bit about his life and these fascinating theories about his death.

I'm also going to talk about his hit job of an obituary, which is a fascinating read by Rufus Wilmot Griswold.

This was an editor who hated Poe, who was allowed to

write his official obituary. This guy was dead set on destroying Poe's reputation after he died.

He was a real piece of work, and so was that obituary, so I'll read some highlights a little later.

I recently read The Raven again in full. If you haven't done it in a while or ever,

do yourself a favor, especially if there's a thunderstorm on the way. Oftentimes, when you hear

it read, it's cut down, but to read the whole thing beginning to end, it feels like I'm standing

on the front of a fast-moving train in the middle of a foggy night

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