The Poe Bicentennial
It's Poe's 200th birthday!
And to celebrate, throughout the course of 2009 Philadelphia will play host to a number of events designed to celebrate and commemorate the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth.
Click here for more information about how you can participate in the festivities.
New Exhibits!
Several new exhibits were recently debuted in honor of Poe's bicentennial — including Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Work.
The exciting, new exhibits are kind of like birthday presents from Philadelphia to the macabre bard.
The Experience
Poe (1809-1849), one of America's most original writers, lived in this red brick home with his wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, for about a year. During that time, he penned The Black Cat, which describes a basement eerily similar to the one here. He also published three of his masterpieces, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Gold Bug.
Visitors can tour the stark rooms and cellar of the three-story home where Poe's imagination ran seductively wild. Rangers recount how Poe dealt with family poverty, Virginia's grave illness and his own personal demons. In the buildings are exhibits on Poe's family and his literary contemporaries, plus a theater that shows an informative eight-minute film.
History
Administered by the National Park Service, this was Poe's residence in 1843 before he moved to New York City. Of his several Philadelphia homes, only this one survives. It serves as a tangible link to Poe at the height of his literary achievements. Although best known for his Gothic horror tales, Poe also created beautiful poetry, was a pioneer science fiction writer, and is credited with inventing the modern detective story with Murders in the Rue Morgue.