The Poe House in Philly
It’s where he wrote some of his greatest works
You’ll see this sunny watercolor of Edgar Allan Poe and his wife Virginia sitting on the porch of the house at the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia. Illustration by Steven Patricia. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of Real Philly History, Real Fast.
Despite a lifetime of living in the Philadelphia area … and 15 years of living downtown itself … I’d never visited the Edgar Allan Poe house. Until recently.
My motivation: a New York group heading for Philly wanted to tour the site. So, before they came, on a recent rainy Friday afternoon, I walked up to the area, carefully crossed busy Callowhill, Vine and Spring Garden Streets, and thoroughly enjoyed my visit.
Almost no one but two helpful National Park Service rangers were there on this dismal day. I had the run of the place.
A self-tour takes you from the third floor of the house to the spooky cellar. I don’t recall if I ever read “The Black Cat” before – but I sure did while researching this blog.
The National Park Service says the false chimney in the cellar could well be the inspiration for the “tomb” mentioned in this brutal, barbaric story.
Poe’s earlier years
Orphaned in 1811 after his mother died of tuberculosis (his father had left earlier), Edgar was taken in by John Allan and his wife Frances, but never legally adopted. They also gave Edgar his middle name.
Edgar, who was brilliant but troubled, argued with Allan because he refused to pay Edgar’s gambling debts, served in the army under an assumed name and age, quickly attained the rank of Sergeant-Major, then left military service after hiring a substitute to complete his obligation.
Later, he entered West Point, tried to resign, and then was court-martialed for “gross neglect of duty” and “disobedience of orders.”
An unusual marriage
Poe married Virginia Clemm, his first cousin, when she was just 13 and he was 27. Unfortunately, she developed tuberculosis shortly before the family moved to this house. It’s possible he chose what was then “a light and airy home” to help heal her lungs.
Poe, his young wife Virginia, her mother and their tortoiseshell cat named Catterina lived in this house for about a year.
During Poe’s six years in Philadelphia, they lived in five houses. This is the only one that remains.
Originally, it was a single house on the corner, but later was boxed in by other properties.
The current site includes Poe’s former home and two adjoining houses not built until later. The additions include the building’s entrance, welcome area, gift shop, film screening room and more.
Daguerrotype of Edgar Allan Poe. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Taken by W.S. Hartshorn, Providence, RI, November 9, 1848. Photograph taken in 1904 by C.T. Tatman. Note: The Library of Congress image is from a copy of a copy; the original has been missing since 1860; see Michael J. Deas, The Portraits and Photographs of Edgar Allan Poe, University Press of Virginia, 1988, p. 40.
Poe’s writing flourished in Philly
Poe produced a prodigious amount of work in his six years in Philadelphia. Among them, says USHistory.org: “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Gold Bug,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Purloined Letter” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” He also probably started “The Raven” here.
Still, he had business failures and money problems that included medical bills for his ailing wife. Poe declared bankruptcy while living in Philadelphia and listed few assets or valuable possessions.
Interesting Oddities:
Someone carved the word “death” into plaster near the kitchen doorway. No one knows if Poe did this or not. But, reportedly he had a habit of writing and drawing on the walls of his University of Virginia dorm room, says the National Park Service. Since Poe’s wife was fatally ill when he was in the house, death was surely on his mind.
Poe invented modern detective fiction when he wrote “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” How? By introducing detective C. Auguste Dupin, who was contacted by police after they were unable to solve a crime. Some 45 years after Poe’s death, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced his sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. In 1902, Doyle called Poe “The Father of the Detective Tale,” strong praise indeed. The Smithsonian Magazine says: “Like his literary descendant, Dupin smokes a meerschaum pipe and is generally eccentric. He’s also unnaturally smart and rational, a kind of superhero who uses powers of thinking to accomplish great feats of crime-solving.” Sound familiar?
Alfred Hitchcock once said: "It's because I liked Edgar Allan Poe's stories so much that I began to make suspense films.”
Very weird connections:
Charles Dickens took his raven, Grip, to America in 1842 to have its portrait painted by noted illustrator Daniel Maclise. Dickens and Poe then met in Philly, and Poe later described Grip in a review of Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge as “intensely amusing.”
Grip may have been more than that. Many believe Grip was the inspiration for Poe’s 1845 poem “The Raven,” which brought him great financial success.
Grip is now at the Free Library of Philadelphia
Writer Virginia Lindak in a Hidden City Philadelphia story, points out even more unusual connections between Poe and Grip:
American collector Colonel Richard Gimbel, son of the founder of Gimbel’s department store, amassed a wealth of Poe materials. Among them: Grip, Dicken’s mounted bird, after it died.
Grip now is permanently perched in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Gimbel also bought and bequeathed Poe’s House to the Free Library. This home became a National Historic Landmark in 1962 and is managed today by the National Park Service.
Even Poe’s death was a mystery
Poe’s death itself was a whodunit. On Oct. 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious, lying in a gutter in shabby second-hand clothes outside of a polling place. His cause of death four days later was listed as swelling of the brain.
No one knows what happened to Poe. Or why he was even in Baltimore. The Smithsonian Magazine says Poe was supposed to be in Philadelphia. His plan had also been to travel to New York, where he’d been living, to take his aunt back to Richmond for his own impending wedding.
Instead, he died. Possible causes: a beating, “cooping” or voter fraud common in Baltimore where a person was kidnapped, disguised and forced to vote many times under different identities; murder, alcohol, which he couldn’t handle, and more.
Whatever the cause, he was dead. A friend, J.P. Kennedy wrote: “Poor Poe! … A bright but unsteady light has been awfully quenched."
Will we see Poe’s like again? I think, “Nevermore.”
This statue of an aggressive raven perches outside the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, Pa. (USA). Photographer: Midnightdreary.
Fast Facts
Name: Edgar Allen Poe Historic Site
Address: 532 N. 7th St., Phila., PA 19123
Year Poe Lived Here: 1843 to 1844
Phone: (215) 597-8780
Open: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Managed By: National Park Service
Visitor Options: Self-led or Ranger-led tours
Honors: National Historic Landmark, National Register of Historic Places
Some Sources:
https://charlesdickensbirthplace.co.uk/collections-stories/stories/the-legendary-grip-the-raven/#:~:text=Following%20Dickens%27%20death%20in%201870,Raven%2C%20from%20the%20museum%20collection.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Allan_Poe_2.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RavenStatue-Philadelphia.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/edgar-allan-poe-invented-detective-story-180962914/#:~:text=Even%20Arthur%20Conan%20Doyle%2C%20creator,the%20answer%20to%20every%20question
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2002/oct/26/shopping.homes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/03/26/edgar-allan-poe-death/
Weiss, Miriam. “Poe’s Catterina.” The Mississippi Quarterly 19, no. 1 (1965): 29–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26473589.