SPRING 2011 ___ THE EDGAR ALLAN POE MUSEUM RICHMOND, VA

It has been just 170 years since Poe introduced the world to C. Auguste Dupin, the fictional detective who would become the prototype for hun-dreds of other legendary sleuths from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poiroit. When Dupin appeared in the April 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine in the first printing of Poe’s story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Poe launched one of today’s most popular literary genres, Detective Fiction, so, in April 2011, the Poe Mu-seum celebrated the 170th anniversary of the birth of the detective story with a new exhibit, “The Birth of Mystery,” which opened April 27 with a “Murder Mystery” evening in which the guests helped solve a mystery. The exhibit features rare memorabilia related to each of Poe’s groundbreaking detective stories (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” “The Purloined Letter,” “Thou Art the Man,” , and “The Gold-Bug”) and will challenge visitors to use Poe’s tech-niques to solve their own mysteries. Also included is the first printing of Poe’s early non-fiction article, “Maelzel’s Chess Player,” in which he solved the mystery of the chess playing automaton by using the same investigative techniques his fictional detectives would later employ. Among the highlights of the exhibit are first printings of Poe’s detective stories, rare documents related to Poe’s attempts to solve a real-life murder case, and classic illustrations for the sto-ries. The exhibit will run until June 20.

Busy Year Ahead for Poe Museum Spring is here, and that means the Poe Museum’s garden is open for a new season of special events, book signings, and weddings. On the fourth Thursday of each month from April through October, you can look forward to our popular Unhappy Hour series. Each Unhappy Hour’s programming brings to life a different Poe work. In April, our guests helped Poe’s detective Dupin solve a mystery. In July, they will meet Fortunato, the hapless victim from “The Cask of Amontillado;” and, in June the Spanish Inquisi-tion will take visitors on a tour of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” On October 30, kids can learn about Poe while playing Poe-inspired games at Poe’s Pumpkin Patch. In January, we’ll celebrate Poe’s birthday as only the Poe Museum can. You can also look forward to book signings, exhibits, and live music. Even if you can’t visit the Poe Museum in person, there might be a traveling exhibit or Poe-to-Go program coming to your town. Check the back page of this newsletter for the event schedule, and be sure to call us at 888-21-EAPOE, email us at info@ poemuseum.org, or visit poemuseum.org/events for all the latest information and updates.

Mission: The Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia interprets the life and influence of Edgar Allan Poe for the education and enjoyment of a global audience.

Dupin Turns 170

POE FOUNDATION TRUSTEES

Dr. Harry Lee Poe President Annemarie W. Beebe Vice President Kassie Ann Olgas Treasurer Benjamin A. P. Warthen Secretary John Astin Robert Buerlein Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr. W. Holt Edmunds Peter Fawn Claire Guthrie Gastanaga Norman George Dr. M. Thomas Inge Dr. Richard Kopley Christopher Kulp Dr. Joseph Kyle Stephan Loewentheil C. Samuel McDonald Rose Marie P. Mitchell Marika Rawles Katherine M. Smith Antoinette Smith Suiter Susan Jaffe Tane Thomas W. Williamson Martha Womack

ADVISORY BOARD Michael Deas

MUSEUM STAFF Christopher P. Semtner Curator Melanie Armstrong Education and Events Coordinator Jamie Ebersole Rentals Coordinator Keith Kaufelt Visitor Services Coordinator Bill Fitzgerald Groundskeeper Megan Zeoli Collections Coordinator Cynthia Hollingshead Bookkeeper

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Notes from the Education Department ___________________________________________________

The Education Department has had quite a busy spring. During the month of April, the museum hosted tours for school groups almost every day that we were open to the public. In all, more than 500 students from all over the state of Virginia, as well as students from North Carolina and Pennsylvania, visited the Poe Mu-seum during the month of April alone and bookings are still com-ing in for May and well into June. We have even had a few bookings for the fall months already. In addition to our pro-grams for middle school and high school students, there has been some interest from day care centers in search of summer programming for elementary school children at the Poe Museum.

We are working to develop a special tour featur-ing music and movement to introduce some of our youngest visitors to Poe and his work. We are also working hard to recruit and train more docents to assist with our guided tours for schools and the general public. The Poe Museum wishes to thank all of our docents who help to make visits to the Poe Museum an outstanding experience for our guests! If you are interested in booking a school tour or a private tour at the Poe Museum, please email us at melanie@ poemuseum.org or call us at 804-648-5523 or toll-free at 1-888-21EAPOE (1-888-213-2763). ~MAA

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Price and Poe: A Match Made in Hell _________________________________________________ From May 26 through August 26 the Poe Museum will celebrate the 100th birthday of film legend Vincent Price with a special display of memorabilia chronicling Price’s career as the silver screen’s greatest interpreter of Poe’s works. Vincent Price (1911-1993) starred in eleven movies based on Edgar Allan Poe’s (1808-1849) stories and poems be-tween 1960 and 1970. Through his work, Vincent Price introduced gen-erations of fans to the literary work of Edgar Allan Poe, so it is only fitting that the Poe Museum pays tribute to him on the centennial of Price’s birth. The exhibit will display rare movie memorabilia from Price’s Poe-themed films as well a casting of the last life mask (right) made of Price before his death. Call 888-21-EAPOE for more informa-

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It was a Dark and Stormy Night... _____________________________________________

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April marked the 170th anniversary of the publication of Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the first modern detective story, so the Poe Museum marked the occasion at our first Un-happy Hour of the 2011 season with an original murder mystery that our guests got to help solve on April 28th. The suspects included characters from various Poe tales who had been brought together so that their creator could an-nounce which of them was to have further adventures in a “new” tale from the esteemed Mr. Poe. This seems to have pro-vided some motivation for the characters in question to want to bump off the competition. Appropriately enough, the murderous mayhem of the evening opened with a crack of thunder and an impressive thunderstorm ensued. Thank-

fully, the majority of our Unhappy Hour guests proved to be hardy souls who wanted to stick it out and find out who was responsible for the nefarious crime and they were re-warded not only with a fun murder mystery, but with a beautiful rainbow that unfolded over the garden just after the storm passed over. Everyone also enjoyed excellent music from the Jack Winn Duo, free nibbles and the cash bar. You never can tell what will happen at a Poe Museum Unhappy Hour, but you can know for certain that whatever occurs will be a lot of fun. For more information on Un-happy Hour at the Poe Museum, please call us or visit the events page on our website: http://www.poemuseum.org/events.php.

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Author Tells Poe�s Wife�s Story ________________________________________________________________________ The saying goes that "behind every great man is a great woman." Imagine what kind of woman it must have taken to support and encourage the master of mystery and psychologi-cal terror, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was twenty-seven years old when he married his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia, who would follow him from Richmond to Philadelphia and New York for eleven years before her early death. Although volumes have already been written on Poe, far too little is known about the person who knew him better than anyone through-out his brief and turbulent career. Author Lenore Hart set out to try to right this wrong with her new historical fiction book, The Raven’s Bride, a novel written from the point of view of Edgar Allan Poe’s wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe. The novel uses elements of the supernatural as well as historical research to try to give readers an idea of what life might have been like for Virginia Poe. Lenore Hart paid the Poe Museum a visit on May 15, 2011 (the day before Poe’s 175th wedding anniversary) to talk about the novel to a crowd of interested listeners. She also read a few passages from the novel and answered questions from the audience.

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Eureka!

In the almost ninety years since the Poe Museum opened, its collection has grown with the acquisition of thousands of objects including rarities (like Poe’s vest) as well as books, manuscripts, furniture, artwork, and movie memorabilia. The Poe Museum’s collection continues to expand thanks to the generosity of its friends. Among the pieces to enter the collection in recent months are translations of Poe’s works in Portuguese (a gift of Andrea Caleffi) and Persian (a gift of the translator, Kaveh Bas-menji, who also filmed the Museum for BBC Persia). The Mu-seum also received donations of artwork including a portrait of Poe by Finnish singer Ville Valo (a gift of Kelly Crawford) and a painting of “Annabel Lee” (a gift of the artist, Marcia Venier of New Jersey, who is pictured above with her artwork).

The Museum’s Enchanted Garden is a popular wedding spot among Richmond locals, but Virginians aren’t the only ones who comprise the Garden’s wedding demographic. Couples will travel from around the country just to get married at the Poe Museum. Sometimes couples will even journey from other countries for the experience, making it something of a pilgrimage wedding destination. On May 10th, 2011, Canadian couple Ali Nikolic and Aaron Thompson were married in the Enchanted Garden. The Lumsden, Saskatchewan residents trekked nearly 2000 miles be-fore arriving in Richmond, VA. With only prior email correspon-dence, I met the couple in person Monday May 9th, the day be-fore their wedding. It was immediately apparent that Ali was a huge Poe fan; it wasn’t so much the portrait tattoo of the writer on her arm that gave her away as it was her obvious excitement to be at the Poe Museum.

The wed-ding itself was an intimate affair, with around a dozen people in attendance. Some came from as close as Virginia Beach; others were fresh off the planes from Can-ada. All the men wore turquoise ties with the image of a gold raven. The day was sunny with a pleasant warmth not in the least bit stifling.

Everyone was in the best of spirits, and I don’t think the weather should take too much credit for this. Ali and Aaron had even expressed that they wouldn’t have minded being wed under an overcast sky during a spring rain, which were the weather condi-tions that had been predicted earlier in the week. The couple said such a thing would be suitable atmosphere for Poe. But the rain never came, and the ceremony went on. Sitting the desk of the gift shop of the Old Stone House, I heard the sounds of the joy-ful applause of this small yet exuberant gathering of people, and looked out the window just in time to see Ali and Aaron pulling away from that consummating kiss. Shortly after the ceremony, before the couple left for the reception, I asked to take a picture (above) of the two of them at the shrine; and here they are, Ali and Aaron, husband and wife. Interested in the Poe Museum’s Enchanted Garden as a potential venue for your wedding? We allow rentals of the Gar-den year round! Email me at jamie@ poemuseum.org for more information. ~JME

A Poetic Wedding Museum Collection Grows

Most people have never heard of the book Poe considered his masterpiece. In fact, even literary scholars have tended to dis-miss Eureka, Poe’s pioneering work of science and philosophy. It’s easy to see why. People just don’t understand it. But that won’t be a problem anymore. A team of renowned scientists and scholars has made this groundbreaking work accessible to the general reader with the Eureka Project, a website devoted to exploration and expla-nation of Eureka. The team includes Juan Lartigue, a Nuclear Energy Pioneer Medal-winner from Mexico; René van Slooten, a chemical engineer and science historian from the Netherlands; Regina Pimentel, an electrical engineer from Brazil; and Poe Museum President Harry Poe, an Edgar™ Award-winning au-thor and Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Un-ion University in Jackson, Tennessee. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Poe’s theo-ries on physics, astronomy, philosophy, inspiration, or just about anything else, visit the Eureka Project at http://www.poe-eureka.com/.

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The Poe Foundation’s programs and exhibits would not be possible without the support of our generous donors and members.

Arts and Cultural Funding Consortium

Corporate and Foundation Donors

A&E Reprographics Altria Group, Inc./Phillip Morris USA The Arts and Cultural Funding Consortium of Richmond, Chesterfield, Hanover, and Henrico The Community Foundation CultureWorks Eerie Nights Ghost Tours Elmwood Fund, Inc. EMC Corporation Four Winds Landscape Design Hampton Hotels Harper Collins Publishing Meadwestvaco Foundation Eleanor R. Morse Trust Mumbo Jumbo Games Quick Pulse Productions Susan Jaffe Tane Foundation William M. Cage Library Trust

Individual Donors

Annemarie W. Beebe McGuire Boyd John Stewart Bryan Robert Buerlein R.L. Bunzl Travis Burgess Charlene Campbell Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr. Edward and Cynthia Childress Ethel Chrisman Waverly M. Cole. M.D. Walter M. Dotts Mrs. Elizabeth P. Dudley Florian Dufour Gregory P. Dunsky W. Holt Edmunds Peter Fawn Mark Ward Fielding Kester S. Freeman, Jr. Norman S. George

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Thanks to Our Donors _______________________________________________________

Help Support the Poe Museum

Each year our members support the Museum because they believe that great literature still matters and that Poe should receive the recognition he deserves as one of the world’s greatest authors. We at the Poe Museum are forever grateful for all the help our mem-bers have given us over the course of the past eighty-eight years. For those of you who are not mem-bers or who are considering re-newing a membership, these are the current membership and con-tributor levels:

Membership Categories Student/Teacher…$15

Individual…$25 Dual (or spousal)…$35

Family…$50 Contributor Levels

Raven Society ($100-$249) Black Cat Society ($250-$499)

Dupin Society ($500-$999) Gold Bug Society ($1,000-$4,900)

Israfel Society ($5,000-$9,999) Eldorado Society ($10,000 or

more)

Each membership level has its own benefits. For more details, please contact Keith Kaufelt at

804-648-5523 or keith@ poemuseum.org.

Sheldon Gottlieb Phillip C. Holladay, Jr. Robert C. Hufford Deborah Inlow Thomas Jefferson, III Richard Kopley Natalie Larson Teresa Luckert Christine Matthews William I. McLaughlin Michael E. McPoland Rose Marie P. Mitchell Richard Nieman John W. Pearsall III Harry Lee Poe Marika Rawles W. Taylor Reveley, III Richard Remington John D. Schulz J. Ronald Smith Katherine M. Smith Mrs. Thomas B. Suiter, Jr Susan Jaffe Tane Raymond P. Toczek Michael J. Vascsinec Jacob A. Wegelin Carole M. Weinstein (In Honor of J. Ronald Smith) John Parker Wright Thomas W. Williamson, Jr.

Zolnay Bust Acquisition Fund

Dr. and Mrs. Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr. George Poe Harry Lee Poe Katherine P. Thomason

Gift Shop Paint Fund

Kassie Ann Olgas

Margery Knight Garden Fund

Jackie Kriese

Susan Jaffe Tane Foundation

Address Correction Requested Forwarding Postage Guaranteed

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Poe Museum Upcoming Events ________________________________________________________

April 28-June 20 Exhibit: The Birth of Mystery Investigate Poe’s pioneering detective stories. May 26, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: Poe�s Mother�s Day Poe’s mother will perform the songs that made her a star in her time. May 26 Exhibit: Vincent Price and Poe On the occasion of his centennial, the Poe Museum pays tribute to the actor who introduced a generation of movie-goers to Poe’s works. June 23, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: The Pit and the Pendulum Join the Spanish Inquisition for an event inspired by Poe’s terror tale. Torture never sounded so fun. July 28, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: The Cask of Amontillado It’s carnival time, and we have just received a cask of what passes for Amontil-lado. Music by Beggars for Life. August 25, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: The Descent into the Maelstrom Get caught in the Maelstrom with sea shanties by Bob Zentz. September 22, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: The Raven Weak and weary? Join us for a “raven” good time. October 6, 2-5 P.M. Annual Poe Memorial Service Meet Poe’s fiancée Sarah Helen Whitman for this tribute to Poe.

October 27, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: The Tell-Tale Heart Is it the beating of the old man’s heart or the band playing in the Enchanted Gar-den? Come to the only Halloween party in Richmond with real ghosts, and hear music by the (Un)Happy (Un)Lucky Combo. October 30, 2-5 P.M. Poe�s Pumpkin Patch Make sure your kids grow up weird by bringing them to this day of Poe-inspired fun. December 2, 6-9 P.M. Poe Illumination As Richmond celebrates its annual Grand Illumination, the Poe Museum will be open late with hot apple cider, singers, and special exhibits. December 2-March 31 Exhibit: Poe�s Mother Even before Edgar Poe was born, his mother Eliza Poe was a popular and respected actress. We’ll mark the bicentennial of her death with a special exhibit as well as talks and other activities to be announced. January 14, 2012, 10 A.M.-12 Midnight Poe�s Birthday Party Join the Poe Museum for its annual Poe Birthday Party. This year, the characters from Poe’s stories will take part in a Poe parade, and you can dress up and join the fun. April 26, 2012, 6-9 P.M. Unhappy Hour: 90th Anniversary of the Poe Museum Join us for a garden party 90 years in the making. We’ll step back in time to April 26, 1922, when a devoted group of Poe admirers celebrated the opening of the Poe Shrine. For a complete schedule and to get the latest updates, visit poemuseum.org or call 888-21-EAPOE.

Contact us: Phone: 804-648-5523

Fax: 804-648-8729 Toll-Free: 888-21-EAPOE

Email: info@poemuseum.org Website: www.poemuseum.org