The Death of Edgar Allan Poe: Fraud, Disease, Or Murder?
7/13/202635 min
On October 3, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious outside a Baltimore polling place, wearing a stranger's clothes, with no memory of the previous five days. Four days later, he was dead at 40... and no autopsy was ever performed. Over 26 theories have been proposed, from rabies and tuberculosis to political cooping and targeted violence.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsHarini Bhat· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hi, listeners. Before we dive into today's episode of Hidden History, I wanna take a brief moment to tell you about another show from Rewind Studios that I know you'll love. It's called Government That Doesn't Suck, hosted by professors Lindsay Cormack and Greg Jackson from History That Doesn't Suck. Ever wonder how the weather forecast on your phone is so accurate, or how your mail still gets across the country for less than a dollar? Or who actually built the highway you drove on this morning? Each episode tells a surprising story of an American institution that you'll never look at the same way again. Listen to and follow Government That Doesn't Suck every other Monday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch video episodes on YouTube.
Speaker 20:40
[gentle music] This is Rewind. Rewind.
Harini Bhat· Host0:48
On October 3rd, 1849, a printer for the Baltimore Sun was heading to a tavern which doubled as a polling place that day. But when he arrived, he found something he wasn't expecting, a man lying in the gutter, barely conscious, and wearing clothes that clearly weren't his. The man could barely speak, but he was able to say his name, Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most celebrated writers in America, and he was dying. No one knew where he'd been for the last five days. He never recovered enough to explain what happened. Four days later, at the age