Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe [Paperback]

John Evangelist Walsh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312227329 | ISBN-13: 978-0312227326 | Publication Date: May 5, 2000 | Edition: 1st

While traveling alone from Richmond, Virginia, to New York City, Poe disappeared for nearly a week. When seen again he was terribly drunk and nearly dead in Baltimore. In the hospital, four days later, after periods of raving delirium, he died. The immediate cause of death given was "congestion of the brain." At first no one seriously doubted that Poe died from drunken debauchery. However, Poe adherents suggested many theories of a physical nature about precipitating causes but no one has seroiusly probed the mystery of the missing week . . . until now.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The circumstances leading to Poe's death in Baltimore, in October 1849, remain a mystery befitting the father of the modern detective story. Walsh, the author of several literary biographies and winner of the 1969 Edgar Award for Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances Behind the Mystery of Marie Roget, takes up the case with a zeal that his subject would have admired. Did Poe drink himself to death, as is widely believed? Or was he the naive victim of unknown?or known?thugs? Adopting a flavorful but unobtrusive 19th-century style ("In that situation, surely, there resides a macabre rightness"), Walsh begins the tale with Poe in Richmond that July, courting his childhood sweetheart, Elmira Shelton, by then a wealthy widow. Poe swore off alcohol, set a date for the wedding and went north to Philadelphia and New York, his future looking serene. But after a gap of five days, Poe was found drunk and in borrowed clothes in a Baltimore saloon, and he died in a hospital three days later. Walsh, a patient gumshoe, sifts through decades of acquaintances' contradictory explanations (including the "cooping" theory, which has Poe drugged by election-eve goons and forced to vote in eleven wards). Finally, with an eye to Poe's libertine reputation, Walsh presents his own solution to the puzzle in a romanticized but plausible re-creation of events. Will it settle the mystery once and for all? Probably not. But it will behoove future biographers to consider the hypotheses Walsh has laid over the curious blank of Poe's death.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Walsh, whose expertise ranges from the shroud of Turin to the Piltdown fraud (Unraveling Piltdown, LJ 8/15/96), has undertaken a superbly informed speculation on the week proceeding the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe 150 years ago. Walsh has made an exhaustive study of newspaper articles, personal correspondence, and memoirs by and about the people who played any role in Poe's last days, during which he left Richmond, VA, for New York City, disappeared for nearly a week, and was next seen apparently paralyzed by drink on a Baltimore street shortly before dying of what was termed "congestion of the brain." Assuming nothing in this case, Walsh provides his reader with the facts about the noted author's late-1849 movements and then offers an utterly plausible explanation of how the hapless alcoholic might really have died. Walsh is a systematic and painstakingly resourceful literary detective. Given Poe's status as a cultural icon, Walsh's clever sleuthing should attract a wide audience. Recommended for all libraries.?Charles Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312227329
• ISBN-13: 978-0312227326
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #849,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Check out some super sleuthing, February 2, 1999

By 

Tom Rogers "J'veux qu'on baise sur ma tombe" (LITTLETON, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe (Hardcover)

Mr. Walsh presents an intriguing and well thought out solution to the enduring controversy surrounding the death of Edgar Allen Poe. The bare details of his death are fairly well known. He was on a trip from Richmond to New York and was found in Baltimore, apparently drunk and suffering from delirium tremens. Taken to a nearby hospital, Poe died after a week without ever really becoming coherent again. Any number of theories (aside from the obvious) have been put forward ranging from disease to drugging and shanghaiing to vote in the elections going on at the time. The methodology Walsh applies is a new approach to the body of research on Poe's death. He believes that Poe's death was a consequence of a fresh conflict caused by his own actions, rather than self destruction or random violence. Murder was considered a distinct possibility by at least two intimates, although the issue in question may have been an old quarrel or memory of an old feud rather than a proximate one, since it echoes an old controversy for which Poe was called out to a duel. The failure to note and expand on that similarity, and to note the advocates of this scenario were literary people favoring a dramatic end more suited to the contemporary conventions of theater and literature, is one of very few obvious holes in the consideration of the evidence.

The bulk of the book, and the jewel of the author's research consists of the presentation, organization and analysis of the relevant evidence, either quoted directly from the sources or summarized. Walsh fits the data against the prevailing theories and finds them lacking in probability. This is a lean and muscular work of historical scholarship. The relentless focus on the scant relevant material is another highlight of this work, there is no padding. The evolution of the witnesses' and researchers' stories closest to the event is also ably chronicled in the book. The accretion and fusing of memory and myth around notorious historical events is interesting all by itself and is well documented by Mr. Walsh.

The proposed new solution conforms neatly to my prejudices, in that it is firmly linked to Poe's private life, I tend to believe (as articulated very well by Louise Brooks among others) that the mysteries of biography and history frequently resolve to the mysteries of love and the bedroom or in the hackneyed phrase of the mystery genre `cherchez la femme'. The quality and honesty of his work can be judged from the fact that although he forwards a new twist on the `death by drinking' theory, which oddly enough, depends crucially on an assertion that Poe was not likely to have broken his fresh Temperance Pledge, his work can be read as dialectic against any theory other than death resulting from a sadly typical self destructive drinking binge.

The presentation and consideration of the evidence is a model for anyone writing on a topic to imitate. The thesis itself, alas, is another matter and occupies a brief few pages at the end. He carefully holds back what he argues happened until all the paltry evidence is produced and evaluated. Testimony is scant and often hearsay or second hand or recalled after many years so no firm conclusions are possible. Walsh suggests that the missing 5 days of Poe's life were spent in a running battle between Baltimore and Philadelphia with pursuers bent on doing him harm. He bases this on a number of conjectures and extrapolations. There is the testimony of a rail road employee that Poe was seen heading towards Philadelphia, and further statements drawn from colleagues in Philadelphia who reported unusual encounters with him. These stories are stretched, cropped, altered and split and then finally moved in time to support the hypothesis. The identity of the poet's enemies and their motives appear like rabbits from a hat and are based on the slenderest wisps of evidence. As with any good magician, though, the groundwork for the gimmick is deftly introduced. However, this is the part of tale where I consider the more or less contemporary explanation of the event was concerned with transforming the poet's death into a more fitting end for a great literary figure. The considerable liberties taken with this part of the evidence don't lend much weight to the conclusions.

As with many theories put forward to resolve the puzzles of literature and the past, this one founders on the sharp reef of Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation, consistent with Poe's sordid history of alcoholic binges detailed in the text and his toxic reaction to alcohol, also well attested, is that he died as a result of one final bender. For those of us familiar with binge drinkers, finding one after a 5 day disappearance under bizarre circumstances is no surprise. The very last person to see Poe on his way to Baltimore stated that he had been drinking, but was sober, not a good omen for a man who'd just promised to become a teetotaler.

While Walsh advances another possible explanation of Poe's death in a crisp, well organized book that moves along at a brisk tempo, he fails establish his solution to the case as likely. I highly recommend this book both for the novelty of its approach, overall quality and for its tight focus.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Compelling, November 23, 2003

By 

Patrick Burnett "penngos" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe (Paperback)

Those who take issue with John Evangelist Walsh's "Midnight Dreary" are, I think, missing the point. Certainly, there is truth to the suggestion that this is two books, one, a detailed recreation of the last days of Poe and two, the author's attempt to make sense of the random data and form a reasonable explanation.

In the first instance, Walsh succeeds beyond one's expectations. I ahve read dozens of biographies of Poe and have not come across a good deal of this material. Letters, journal entries, recollections of personal interviews - Walsh succeeds in bringing extant material to light.

In the second endeavor, Walsh has not been as successful. In my opinion, he falls into every theorists greatest trap - attempting to bend the facts to fit his hypothesis. In several cases, Walsh accuses his subjects of faulty memory and/or outright embellishment. "Such and such can not have occurred on this date, but if we assume that the wrier was incorrect and it actually occurred on blah-blah date, then it all makes sense." No. No and no. As observers of history, we do not have the luxury of assuming those who lived it were forgetful liars.

Nonetheless, this IS an interesting book and it is a treasure trove of data for those interested in Poe's death. Additionally, it is written in an interesting, conversational style that I found quite readable. I enjoyed this book, as a reader and as an historian.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling read, August 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe (Hardcover)

I just finished this compelling book here on a sultry Saturday afternoon in August; nothing could have been better. Knowing very little of literary matters or much about E.A. Poe (except The Raven and Annibel Lee in 9th grade), I found this book to be riveting. I had not known of the mystery of his death or any of the theories pertaining to it. But having worked most of my life in mental health as a professional, I found myself more and more, as I sped through the book, asking myself whether this man might have been suffering from mental illness, certainly alcoholism as we know it today. The experiences and symptoms described of Poe by Walsh appear as classic examples of Bipolar Disorder or an agitated Major Depression with psychotic (paranoid) features. People who don't take their medication and who suffer from Major Mental Illness may often be "dually diagnosed" with substance abuse perhaps to self-medicate. The absence of real, tangible evidence in history to support the hypothesis that Poe was followed by Elmira's vindictive brothers during an agitated lost 5 days along the Eastern Seaboard, contributed to my obsessing about the possibility that just maybe Poe suffered from an agitated psychotic depression and had landed in Baltimore that October, 1849 having succumbed to alcohol poisoning. What a fabulous tale, but the sad mystery remains. And what a sad event for American history. And, oh, by the way, I found Walsh's writing to flow like a bounding river.