

The two met twice during Dickens' short time in the city, but they carried on a correspondence for years. A raven is also featured in Dickens' novel, “Barnaby Rudge,” which Poe, a scathing literary critic, reviewed and admired. In fact, his meeting in Philadelphia with novelist Dickens, who owned a pet raven named Grip, led to the poem’s central image. (Contributed photo/Free Library of Philadelphia)
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“The genre did not even have a name when he first wrote it,” said professor Poe.Īnd while the final version of his single most famous work was not completed until he left the city for New York, Poe conceptualized the poem, “The Raven” while in Philadelphia.Ĭharle's Dickens' pet raven, Grip, inspired the central image of Edgar Allan Poe's best-known work, "The Raven." the stuffed bird is in the Rare Book Room of the Free Library. He also penned one of the first examples of science fiction, “A Descent into the Maelstrom” while in the city and wrote several more sci-fi tales while here. Auguste Dupin became the role-model for Sherlock Holmes and hundreds of fictional detectives who have come since. In the three mystery tales he wrote here, Poe invented the first recurring detective figure, too. The author also created the first modern mystery story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue," a nd wrote a lightly fictionalized version of a true-crime tale, “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” another first. Poe crafted many gloomy Gothic tales of revenge, dissolution, symbolism, horror and claustrophobic creepiness in Philadelphia, tales such as "The Pit and the Pendulum, " "The Masque of the Red Death," “Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Gold Bug.” He pioneered exploring insanity, disease and depression (both realities in his own life) in the stories he wrote here. He moved past gratuitous violence to examine mystery and meaning.” “It was a new kind of thing,” said professor Poe. Poe also became the first to write a story from the perspective of the tormented mind of a killer while in Philly. He perfected psychological thrillers, writing "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat" while in Philly.

Lifted by the local literary scene, Poe, who edited two prominent magazines during his time in the city, went where writers before him had never been.

It was a literary scene without the jealousy of New York,” professor Poe said. That was an important part of who he became as a writer. "He was a part of a literary circle in Philadelphia. Drury Beer Garden hosts pumpkin carving through Halloween.Five local pick-your-own spots to find the perfect pumpkin.Bucks County hot air balloons named best way to see fall colors.Take a Mexican 'staycation' for Día de los Muertos.Philadelphia was a cultural center, not just of literature, but also of art, architecture, gardening and music. Though he had what the professor calls "a burst of poetic genius" in New York soon after, Poe did more work and wrote more short stories in Philly. The time he spent here “was a period of huge productivity for him,” said Harry Lee Poe, a professor at Union University in Tennessee and the author of two scholarly books on his distant cousin. These incredibly productive six years made him the most influential writer to have worked in the city. It's the ideal time to celebrate Poe’s troubled literary genius, forever cemented while living and working in his adopted city, Philadelphia, from 1837 to 1844.
