By Paul Carrier
The facts surrounding Edgar Allan Poe’s death, on Oct. 7, 1849, at the age of 40, were a mystery at the time. They remain so today.
Ostensibly en route from Virginia to New York with a stop in Philadelphia, Poe was inexplicably found in a delirious state at Ryan’s Tavern in Baltimore on Oct. 3, wearing someone else’s clothes. Hospitalized in that city, he was agitated and incoherent, calling out over and over again for someone named Reynolds before he died. A death certificate has not been found. The cause of Poe's death remains the subject of conjecture.
Ostensibly en route from Virginia to New York with a stop in Philadelphia, Poe was inexplicably found in a delirious state at Ryan’s Tavern in Baltimore on Oct. 3, wearing someone else’s clothes. Hospitalized in that city, he was agitated and incoherent, calling out over and over again for someone named Reynolds before he died. A death certificate has not been found. The cause of Poe's death remains the subject of conjecture.
Why did Poe end up in Baltimore? What accounts for his sorry state when he materialized at Ryan’s Tavern? How can we explain what Matthew Pearl describes as “one of literary history's most persistent gaps,” the five days preceding Poe’s arrival at the tavern?
It is that mystery that Pearl attempts to unravel in The Poe Shadow, a novel.
Quentin Clark, a young lawyer from Baltimore and an obsessive fan of Poe’s work, stumbles upon his poorly attended burial in a local cemetery. Appalled by speculative newspaper accounts of Poe’s death that attribute it to drunkenness and dissolute living, Clark sets out to set the record straight, convinced as he is that Poe’s reputation is being unfairly tarnished by irresponsible journalists.
Clark believes he’s on an all-important mission, despite the disapproval of his law partner, two of Poe’s cousins living in Baltimore, and the family of his fiancée. Having corresponded with Poe near the end of the author’s life, Clark had vowed to defend the writer against libelous assaults as Poe worked to launch a literary magazine to be dubbed The Stylus. Poe died before the journal ever saw the light of day, but Clark insists his promise to represent Poe requires that he try to restore the author’s good name.
Initially, Clark struggles to solve the puzzle of Poe’s last days on his own, but without success. When a newspaper story claims that C. Auguste Dupin, a brilliant fictional detective created by Poe, supposedly is modeled on a real-life crime fighter in Paris, Clark sets out in search of Auguste Duponte, whom he believes to be the inspiration for Poe’s Dupin. If Dupin has a real-life counterpart, Clark hopes to solicit his help in ferreting out the facts surrounding Poe’s demise.
Convoluted complications ensue, of course, making The Poe Shadow yet another page-turner from Pearl. Once in Paris, Clark finds Duponte, only to learn that another man, Baron C. A. Dupin, claims Poe's creation is based on his life. Duponte and Dupin find their way to Baltimore, each determined to beat his competitor in ferreting out the truth of Poe’s demise.
Pearl, who conducted extensive research for his novel, rejects the claim that Poe was a notorious alcoholic whose excessive drinking caused his death. The author contends, both in the novel and in interviews, that although Poe did consume alcohol, he had such a low tolerance for it that he rarely went on binges.
Poe “clearly could not handle even a small amount of alcohol,” Pearl said in a 2006 interview with litkicks.com. “This does not mean there were not times when he actively drank too much; he admitted he did, but the idea of Poe as Bohemian drunk, as a pre-Jim Morrison, seems to me all wrong.”
In which case, Pearl (and Clark) argue, there must be some other explanation for Poe's untimely end.
Pearl is a master of frequent and surprising plot shifts, sometimes involving extravagant, melodramatic developments. There are more twists and turns here than on a country road in rural New England. The Poe Shadow races along at a dizzying clip, leaving the reader turning the pages as quickly as possible to discover what happens next.
The Poe Shadow is the second in a series of literary-themed novels by Pearl, the first of which was The Dante Club. Others deal with Robert Louis Stevenson (The Last Bookaneer) and Charles Dickens (The Last Dickens). Another work of historical fiction, The Technologists, is a thriller set in 19th-century Boston, but without the famous author tie-in found in much of Pearl’s work.
It is that mystery that Pearl attempts to unravel in The Poe Shadow, a novel.
Quentin Clark, a young lawyer from Baltimore and an obsessive fan of Poe’s work, stumbles upon his poorly attended burial in a local cemetery. Appalled by speculative newspaper accounts of Poe’s death that attribute it to drunkenness and dissolute living, Clark sets out to set the record straight, convinced as he is that Poe’s reputation is being unfairly tarnished by irresponsible journalists.
Clark believes he’s on an all-important mission, despite the disapproval of his law partner, two of Poe’s cousins living in Baltimore, and the family of his fiancée. Having corresponded with Poe near the end of the author’s life, Clark had vowed to defend the writer against libelous assaults as Poe worked to launch a literary magazine to be dubbed The Stylus. Poe died before the journal ever saw the light of day, but Clark insists his promise to represent Poe requires that he try to restore the author’s good name.
Initially, Clark struggles to solve the puzzle of Poe’s last days on his own, but without success. When a newspaper story claims that C. Auguste Dupin, a brilliant fictional detective created by Poe, supposedly is modeled on a real-life crime fighter in Paris, Clark sets out in search of Auguste Duponte, whom he believes to be the inspiration for Poe’s Dupin. If Dupin has a real-life counterpart, Clark hopes to solicit his help in ferreting out the facts surrounding Poe’s demise.
Convoluted complications ensue, of course, making The Poe Shadow yet another page-turner from Pearl. Once in Paris, Clark finds Duponte, only to learn that another man, Baron C. A. Dupin, claims Poe's creation is based on his life. Duponte and Dupin find their way to Baltimore, each determined to beat his competitor in ferreting out the truth of Poe’s demise.
Pearl, who conducted extensive research for his novel, rejects the claim that Poe was a notorious alcoholic whose excessive drinking caused his death. The author contends, both in the novel and in interviews, that although Poe did consume alcohol, he had such a low tolerance for it that he rarely went on binges.
Poe “clearly could not handle even a small amount of alcohol,” Pearl said in a 2006 interview with litkicks.com. “This does not mean there were not times when he actively drank too much; he admitted he did, but the idea of Poe as Bohemian drunk, as a pre-Jim Morrison, seems to me all wrong.”
In which case, Pearl (and Clark) argue, there must be some other explanation for Poe's untimely end.
Pearl is a master of frequent and surprising plot shifts, sometimes involving extravagant, melodramatic developments. There are more twists and turns here than on a country road in rural New England. The Poe Shadow races along at a dizzying clip, leaving the reader turning the pages as quickly as possible to discover what happens next.
The Poe Shadow is the second in a series of literary-themed novels by Pearl, the first of which was The Dante Club. Others deal with Robert Louis Stevenson (The Last Bookaneer) and Charles Dickens (The Last Dickens). Another work of historical fiction, The Technologists, is a thriller set in 19th-century Boston, but without the famous author tie-in found in much of Pearl’s work.
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