BOOKPATHS

Baltimore Art Museum, Maryland, U.S.

The Baltimore Art Museum’s exhibition, Edgar Allan Poe: a Baltimore Icon, continues through January 17, 2010.   Wouldn’t this be a perfect destination this weekend?

This dramatic exhibition brings together 80 prints, drawings, and illustrated books drawn largely from the BMA’s distinguished collection. These rarely shown works of art explore the enduring legacy of Poe's uniquely dark fiction through the themes of Love & Loss, Fear & Terror, and Madness & Obsession.

See how 'The Raven', 'The Black Cat', 'The Tell-tale Heart', 'The Pit and the Pendulum', and other Poe classics inspired some of the greatest artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. – from the Baltimore Museum of Art Website

Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.

This Sunday, Edgar Allan Poe will receive a “proper funeral – 160 years on.”

This Sunday, 160 years almost to the day since his sorry passing, Poe will finally be given the send off that his multitude of fans passionately believe he deserved. At 11.30am, a life-size recreation of his body will be carried in a horse-drawn carriage from his Baltimore home in Amity Street, to the Westminster Burying Ground where not one, but two full-length ceremonies will be held in front of up to 700 admirers, some of whom will have travelled from as far away as Vietnam. – from “Writer Edgar Allan Poe Gets Proper Funeral – 160 Years On,” by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

Baltimore, Maryland

Checkout a 2003 Independent article for a guide to Ann Tyler’s Baltimore.

“Well, there's Roland Park. That's where Anne Tyler's genteel characters live. Macon Leary of The Accidental Tourist, Delia Grinstead from Ladder of Years, the Peck Family in Searching for Caleb, among others, hail from there. One of the first planned suburban communities in the US when it was conceived in 1891, landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead Jr, son of the man who designed New York's Central Park, Roland Park – with its curving, tree-lined lanes, network of public footpaths and large shingle houses with wrap-around porches – is a masterpiece of turn-of-the-century urban planning. It also epitomises upper-middle-class Waspdom in all its glory. The original deeds for houses forbade their sale to Jews, blacks and immigrants. These housing patterns were enforced until the 1970s.” – from “In Search of… Anne Tyler in Baltimore”, by Gerson Nason, The Independent

Bookpath: Smith Island, Maryland

An Island Out of Time : a Memoir of Smith Island in the Chesapeake, by Tom Horton (New York : Vintage, 1997)

In An Island Out of Time, Tom Horton describes the nearly three years he spent on Smith Island, “a marshy archipelago in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.” His “intimate portrait” of people, “150 watermen and their families,” and place evokes a vanishing way of life.

Related Websites

Smith Island

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

“In fact, the more I thought about the lights, the more it seemed that the charm of the island was not so much its abundance of nature; rather, its juxtaposition of the human and the natural; and even more to the point, the fact that it had achieved a balance between them. We reel, desensitized, from too much light, but it is no black and lonesome wilderness most of us seek; rather, a pleasing accommodation of the light with the dark. You cannot fully appreciate either without the other.” -- from An Island Out of Time : a Memoir of Smith Island, by Tom Horton

Bethesda, Maryland

Read the transcript of Clarence Page’s News Hour essay on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Classic Novel, and the Historic Landmark.”

“You can just barely see it tucked away behind the trees along a busy highway near the the shopping malls in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington. On Martin Luther King’s birthday the state of Maryland purchased that historic house because of the little cabin attached to it. Almost two centuries ago that cabin was the home of a slave named Josiah Henson before he escaped to Canada. Harriet Beecher Stowe used his memoir as a basis for her classic American novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” -- Clarence Page

Related Link

Electronic edition of Josiah Henson’s autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/henson49/henson49.html

Westminster Presbyterian Churchyard, Baltimore, Maryland

Associated press writer, Kasey Jones, reports the return today of the mystery man who pays tribute to Edgar Allan Poe by placing roses and a bottle of cognac on the writer’s grave to mark his birthday.” Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. This is “the 57th straight year that the visitation has occurred."

“For decades, a frail figure made the visit to Poe's grave. In 1993 the original visitor left a cryptic note saying, ‘The torch will be passed.’ A later note said the man, who apparently died in 1998, had handed the tradition on to his sons.” – from “Mystery Man Places Roses on Poe Gravesite,” by Kasey Jones

Baltimore, Maryland

Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849 in Baltimore. The reason for his death is still debated. He, his wife, Virginia; her mother (and Poe's aunt), Maria; are buried in Westminster Graveyard in downtown Baltimore. Poe also has earlier connections to Baltimore. Between 1829 and 1836 Poe spent much of his time there, staying with his aunt, Maria Clemm. In 1835, Edgar Allan Poe moved back to Richmond and, in 1836, he sent for Maria and her daughter, Virginia. Edgar Allan Poe and his 13-year-old cousin were married that year. Poe "never returned to Baltimore to live for any extended period of time."

It is easy to find Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore. You can pay homage at his gravesite; enjoy the 1907 sculpture of Poe in Wyman Park; and visit the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, the former home of Maria Clemm. Originally saved from destruction and maintained by the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, it is now maintained by The Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation. The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum offers another glimpse into Poe's fascinating life. They also celebrate Poe during their yearly Halloween celebration and host "the World's Largest Edgar Allan Poe Birthday Celebration on the weekend closest to his January 19th birthdate."

The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum is located at 203 North Amity Street, Baltimore. You can phone 410-396-7932, or visit their website, for information. They are open Wednesday through Saturday, 12 noon to 3:45 p.m., April through early December.

Of interest

Academy of Poets

Knowing Poe Website

Mystery Writers of America Award

And, a note. Although Edgar Allan Poe is a perfect author to turn to on these days before Halloween, the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site website offers a broader look at Poe's legacy:

Edgar Allan Poe has cast a long shadow: he has probably had a greater influence than any other American writer. Although Poe's tales and poems range from masterful to ludicrous, Poe exerted his most significant influence as a man who understood the temper of his times, and foreshadowed so much of the future of literature. His wide-ranging tales and his broad criticism sought a method for American literature where none had prevailed. Poe deliberately sought great variety in his tales. A review of his more than seventy pieces of fiction testifies not merely to his range, but also to the significant popular genres he created or made his own which today form the staples of American fiction.

"True! -- nervous -- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease has sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story." -- from "The Tell-Tale Heart," by Edgar Allan Poe