Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849

'Quoth the Raven Nevermore'

 

Edgar Allan Poe is buried in the Westminster Cemetery, Baltimore,  Maryland, USA.


Monument to Edgar Allan Poe

In September 1849 Poe left Richmond and headed for New York to help a lady friend with her manuscripts. For reasons unknown he stopped at Baltimore on the way and on the 3rd October he was discovered in the street outside a polling station in a delirious and semi-conscious state. It is not known whether he was suffering from excessive alcohol, heart failure or epilepsy - or possibly a combination of all three. 

Poe was taken to hospital but died four days later. His last words were: "Lord help my poor soul." He was buried the next day in the Baltimore Presbyterian Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

In 1875 a new monument to Poe was erected.  Walt Whitman was present at the dedication ceremony and letters from Longfellow, Whittier and Tennyson were read out.

Several years later the remains of Virginia Poe (Poe's wife) were exhumed and brought from New York and added to those of Poe. 

Poe's poetry was a major influence on the French symbolist poets. He was also admired in England by the likes of W.B. Yeats, Wilde, Swinburne and D.G. Rossetti.

 


Gravestone to mark the original site of Poe's grave. This was erected in 1913 by Orin C Painter but was not situated in the right place. It was moved to its present  location in 1921..

" Leave my loneliness unbroken! -quit the bust above my door!
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
      Quoth the Raven "Nevermore"

From The Raven (Complete Poem)

Read more of Poe's poetry

 

 


 

 

 
 
 
 

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