The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe

Synopsis

When Auguste Dupin, on an overcast day in October 1849, receives a letter informing him of Poe's death, he leaves Paris and journeys to America to pay his respects to Poe's family. But he also wants to put to rest his fear that his friend was murdered; unfortunately, it seems as though Poe had his enemies as well as his admirers. Dupin's voyage takes him from the genteel salons of Richmond, Virginia to the home of the woman who stole Poe's heart, to the back alleys of Baltimore, where the poet lost himself in drink and self-pity, to the throngs of New York City, hub of the elite literary society which Poe ultimately failed to enter. Rich in its depictions of nineteenth-century America, The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe quickly draws the reader into a mystery as macabre and frightening as Poe's own work.