Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Enter Poe
It's broad, many-windowed facade topped
by a large, square cupola from which flew
a huge American flag, the recently completed
American Hotel loomed grandly
over Richmond's busy Main Street. An eye
cast up and down the extensive, gently sloping thoroughfare
would judge the American to be easily the most prominent
building in sight.
On an oppressively hot morning in mid-July 1849 one
of the city's regular horse-drawn omnibuses pulled to a stop
before the American's front entrance, unexpectedly modest
for so imposing a structure. As the compact little vehicle
halted at the curb, its narrow rear door popped open and
through it appeared a slightly built man, somber-faced and
moving rather stiffly. Clutching a valise in one hand, he
stepped down to the pavement, hurried up the stone steps,
and entered the hotel lobby. At the desk he signed the register,
then accepted a key and climbed wearily up the stairs
to his room.
Edgar Allan Poe, aged forty, and feeling a good deal under
the weather, had arrived on stage for the final act of his
often hectic personal drama. But of that sad fact he had no
inkling. Despite a head still throbbing from a recent overindulgence,
he had definite plans for the future.
Earlier that morning, after a journey of some thirty hours
by train and steamboat, he had reached Richmond from
Philadelphia, where he stopped over on his way south from
his home in New York. The latter part of the journey had
not been pleasant, for he was still feeling the effects of
another of his prolonged drinking bouts, this one in the
Quaker City, and in fact the worst yet. So extreme had been
his intoxication in Philadelphia, where he lingered for two
weeks, that he'd experienced his first full-blown fit of delirium
tremens, complete with visions.
Taken briefly into police custody, he had escaped a formal
charge, and jail time, through the accident of his being
recognized by the judge. Only with the sympathetic help
of some friends, including the gift of some cash to replace
what he'd thrown away on liquor, had he been able to pull
himself together sufficiently to continue his planned trip to
the Virginia capital.
Secure at last in the quiet of his room at the American,
he gratefully passed the remainder of the day resting,
while duly applying whatever remedies and restoratives
he'd come to depend on in these emergencies. Before approaching
any of his friends in the city or getting in touch
with those who were expecting him, he'd need time to
bounce back. Miserable as he was in mind and body, his
clothes also needing repair, he knew from experience with
his previous sprees that a full recovery would be slow, requiring
two or three whole days. He was not a man who
held his liquor well.
Then, that same evening, real trouble showed up, posing
a threat to his entire purpose in coming south. Taking his
valise, he opened it and reached in for the manuscripts of
two lectures he'd written especially for this trip. Rummaging
through the folded clothes, collars, and personal items,
he was alarmed to find that neither of the two manuscripts
was in the bag. In Philadelphia the valise had reposed for
days in storage at the railway station, and he now concluded
that someone had opened the bag and stolen the lectures.
Writing home later that evening in a mood of utter despair,
he reported the shocking loss. "Think of the blow to me
this evening," he lamented, "when on examining the valise,
these lectures were gone. All my object here is over unless
I can recover them or re-write one of them."
The lecture tour, scheduled for several other cities after
Richmond, was not in itself the object or purpose of his
trip. It was only the means to an end, one of considerable
importance to him. The lectures would, he hoped, be the
means of introducing to literate audiences the news of his
projected new magazine, The Stylus, long dreamed of as taking
rank with the leading American journals. Before any of
the work on the magazine could be set in motion, editorial
or otherwise, a list of one thousand firmly committed subscribers
must be on hand, ensuring at least the cost of paper
and printing for the first issue. That was the agreement
he'd made with his financial backer, and if everything went
as expected the plan was to have that first issue in the hands
of readers by year's end or at least by January. It was a target
date, as all those concerned in the risky venture were well
aware, leaving precious little margin for delay.
At that moment in his room at the American, as the
sounds of the darkening city drifted in with the suffocating
heat through the open windows, the usually buoyant Poe
had reached a very low ebb. "My clothes are so horrible," he
added in a burst of remorse and yearning for sympathy as
he concluded his letter, "and I am so ill."
Not really ill. That was just the way he and his family
had learned to disguise the truth about his periodic binging,
and the terrible debility that followed. But this time
it was as much plain fear, desperate fear of another failure,
that made him ill and made his clothes, wrinkled and
stained as they may have been from his Philadelphia binge,
appear so disgusting.
