On this 13th Day before Halloween I would like to remind you that Edgar Allen Poe’s
obituary
was written by his rival and critic
and that his rival created the madman and lunatic in that obituary
we have come to be familiar with today.
Two things.
When I found out that part of David Tennant’s makeup person’s job on the set of
” Doctor Who ” was to fluff his hair AND that it was possible to write obituaries for
people you hated and that you could say anything you wanted about them and it would
stick to their legacy as if you had used gallons of crazy glue- I realized I hadn’t chosen
my career path wisely.
And I wept.
You know that Poe’s Raven belonged to Charles Dickens, and that it’s in the Philadelphia Public Library, right?
I didn’t know that! How amazing … my two favorite authors!
The Raven is of course stuffed and mounted, and there are people who visit it every year on Poe’s birthday. Apparently Dickens visited with Poe on one of his American tours, Raven in tow. I no longer recall the details, but this link has them.
https://libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/3554
Thank you Vic!
That Library, the first in the US, traces its origin to Benjamin Franklin, as do many other things we tend to take for granted.