Book List: Must-Read Radar: Five Edgar Allan Poe-Focused Favs

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“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”

📚

I am endlessly fascinated by Edgar Allan Poe, the enigmatic genius whose turmoil-filled life forged the detective story (among numerous other debatable credits), penned some of the most atmospheric and infamous tales and verses of haunting and horror ever put to paper, and left behind a tragic and shadowy legacy of fallibility, vulnerability, and struggle that continues to tantalize and elude. Who was he, what was his life like, how did he create his legendary literary works, and what were the bizarre circumstances surrounding his unexplainable death?

Through extensive research and scholarship, many have attempted to understand and demystify the Master of the Macabre; I’ve assembled five of my favorite Poe-focused books to date below, along with a TBR pile peek.

Five Edgar Allan Poe-Focused Favorites:

• Edgar Allan Poe: The Strange Man Standing Deep in the Shadows by Charlotte Montague: An amazingly detailed account that incorporates glossy, full-color pages packed with photos, letters, and fascinating historical content concerning both Poe’s work and his family, friends, enemies, and associates.

• Images of America: Virginia: Edgar Allan Poe in Richmond by Keshia A. Case, Christopher P. Semtner, Poe Museum: An engrossing chronicle of Poe’s time in Richmond — the city where he spent 13 of his 40 years and experienced formative moments — that includes archival photos and detailed historical information.

• A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak: A recent release that debunks theories relating to Poe’s unsettling and perplexing demise while providing its own compelling and highly plausible hypothesis.

• The Reason for the Darkness of the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science by John Tresch: A biography that examines Poe’s lifelong obsession with science and the advancement of human knowledge, as well as his explosive and contradictory nature. The audiobook version is a captivating listen.

• Poe for Your Problems: Uncommon Advice from History's Least Likely Self-Help Guru by Catherine Baab-Muguira: A unique, riveting, and darkly funny satire chock-full of details about Poe’s life that — while chronicling his shortcomings, difficulties, and failures — celebrates him as someone who morphed his horrible situation into a notorious, impenetrable persona buoyed by universally acclaimed works.

TBR Pile Peek:

• Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn: The mother of all Poe bios (clocking in at 800+ pages and used in college seminars) that “extracts the life from the legend” and “describes how they both were distorted by prior biographies” by devoting “itself meticulously to facts based on exhaustive research in the Poe family archive” rather than “fancy, guesses, and amateur psychologizing.”

• The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower: The true account of the baffling July 1841 murder of 21-year-old cigar girl Mary Rogers that stumped New York’s police force and inspired “The Mystery of Marie Rogȇt.”

• Poe: A Life Cut Short by Peter Ackroyd: A bio that opens at the close of Poe’s brief, brilliant, turbulent, and poverty-stricken existence that emphasizes his childhood and the power of his imagination.

What are your favorites?

❤Amanda

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