To this day, the cause of Edgar Allan Poe's death at age 40 on October 7, 1849 remains unknown — but the events surrounding it are just as eerie as his iconic horror stories.
Author Edgar Allan Poe was known for his macabre tales of mystery, so it is perhaps only fitting that his own death on October 7, 1849 was just as mysterious as his classic works.
In the days leading up to his death, things were looking up for Poe. He had successfully delivered popular lectures on his new essay, “The Poetic Principle,” and even rekindled his relationship with his first fiancée, Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton, who was now a wealthy widow. And despite the disapproval of her children, she and Poe became engaged.
Poe’s plan was to travel to Philadelphia for a small editing job, then on to New York to retrieve his aunt, Maria Clemm, and bring her back to Richmond, Virginia for the wedding. Poe, however, was not well.
His fiancée later wrote that on the evening of September 26, the night before he left, Poe had been “very sad” and “quite sick,” complaining of a fever and a weak pulse. A local doctor had also advised him not to travel, but Poe ignored the advice and boarded a steamer in Richmond bound for Baltimore at 4:00 a.m. on September 27.
After that, the timeline gets murky.
Poe arrived in Baltimore on September 28, but his actions over the next five days are almost entirely unknown, often referred to as Poe’s “lost week.” There is one popular, though disputed, account of this period from Philadelphia, where Poe had been intending to edit a collection of poems for another writer.
According to John Sartain, a well-known engraver and magazine editor in the city, Poe appeared at his office in a state of delirium.
Sartain claimed that Poe arrived “pale and haggard” with a “wild expression in his eyes.” Poe was reportedly experiencing hallucinations and believed “assassins” were hiding in the building to murder him. He said the assassins had followed him from Richmond over “woman trouble,” presumably referring to his engagement, and that he had evaded them by disembarking in Bordentown, New Jersey, and traveling to Philadelphia in secret.
Wikimedia CommonsTo this day, the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s death and the “lost week” the preceded it remains shrouded in mystery.
If Sartain’s account is true, then Poe was already likely paranoid and delusional before ever arriving in Baltimore. Of course, no one was able to confirm Sartain’s story.
What we do know is that Poe was found in Baltimore on October 3, five days after he boarded that steamer, at a pub called Ryan’s Tavern, which was being used as a polling station for an election. A printer for the Baltimore Sun named Joseph W. Walker found Poe “in great distress” – delirious; wearing ill-fitted, soiled clothes that were clearly not his own; and unable to explain what happened to him or how he got there.
Walker, recognizing the famous author, immediately wrote to Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass, an editor and physician acquainted with Poe, asking for assistance. Snodgrass arrived with Poe’s uncle, Henry Herring, and had Poe admitted to Washington College Hospital, where he was placed under the care of the resident physician, Dr. John J. Moran.
Poe spent his last four days in the hospital, lapsing in and out of consciousness. He was never coherent long enough to explain his “lost week” or how he came to be in such a state. Moran recounted that Poe was plagued by “vacant converse with spectral and imaginary objects on the wall.” And on the night before his death, Poe repeatedly and frantically called out the name “Reynolds.”
To this day, the mystery of who this “Reynolds” was, and what happened to Edgar Allan Poe during those missing days, remains unsolved.
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