On This Day In History American Writer Edgar Allan Poe Was Born

On this day in 1809 Edgar Allan Poe, father of the American detective story and author of The Tell-Tale Heart and The Raven, was born.

You read my Crime Beat column on Poe's work and the tribute to Poe by modern-day crime writers via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/04/my-first-on-crime-thrillers-column-for.html

A 1927 Film Clip With Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Discussing Sherlock Holmes and Psychics

The web site openculture.com offers a 1927 film clip that features Sherlock Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

While Scottish physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, he seems almost wholly of the nineteenth century: a trained scientist who fervently believed in “spiritualism” and fairies, and an accomplished and prolific writer whose most famous character—that most logical of detectives—had a cocaine addiction and more personal quirks than the average neurotic. Like Joseph Conrad, Doyle sailed–as a ship’s doctor–to European colonies in West Africa and found himself deeply affected by the brutal exploitation he encountered. And like Conrad, he seems to embody a turn-of-the-century Britishness poised between old and new worlds, when Victoria gave way to Edward and modernity limned the Empire. Although the age of film and of television have always embraced Sherlock Holmes, his creator belongs to the age of the novel. Nevertheless, he agreed to the 1927 interview above, possibly his only appearance on film. In the brief monologue, he discusses the two questions that he most received from curious fans and journalists: how he came to write the Sherlock Holmes stories and how he came to believe in “psychic matters.”

You can read the rest of the piece and watch the film interview via the below link:

http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/arthur_conan_doyle_discusses_sherlock_holmes_and_psychics_in_a_rare_filmed_interview_1927.html

Poe's Philadelphia, Evermore

Arielle Emmett wrote an interesting piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer about the late great Edgar Allan Poe and his Philadelphia connection.

You wouldn't know from a reading of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination that his dead wife showed up on stilts to dance with him one night. You wouldn't suspect from the richness of his poetry and short stories that Poe and his family were starved for calories for much of their lives. And you wouldn't guess from the bitter obituary written by his literary executor and rival Rufus Griswold - who claimed that Poe "had few or no friends" and that few would grieve for him - that his reading public not only adored Poe, but would soon elevate him to the status of dark literary god.
Nothing about Poe seems obvious: not the literary squabbles that cost him the support and admiration of people who could have furthered his career; not the scandals surrounding his flirtations with drugs, booze, and married women; not even the details of his mysterious death in a Baltimore hospital.

Poe remains a giant of mysteries, and Philadelphia was where many of those mysteries were born.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20121019_Poe_s_Philadelphia__evermore.html

Boston Chooses Life-Size Statute Of Edgar Allan Poe For The Boston Square Dedicated To The Writer

Johanna Kaiser at Boston.com reports on Boston's selection of a life-size statue to commemorate the writer's ties to Boston. (Your move, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City).

American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe is set to return to the city of his birth in the form of a bronze statue standing in the Boston square dedicated to him.

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston announced Monday that a life-size statue depicting Poe striding through Boston--trunk in hand, a raven at his side, a heart and papers trailing behind him--has been chosen to stand in Edgar Allan Poe Square, a tree-lined, brick plaza at the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South, two blocks north of where Poe was born in 1809.

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You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

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http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/beacon_hill/2012/04/life-size_poe_statue_chosen_to.html
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Note: You can click on the photo to enlarge it.