Mission: The Poe Museum in Richmond

SPRING 2011 ___
THE EDGAR ALLAN POE MUSEUM
RICHMOND, VA
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
It has been just 170 years since Poe introduced the world to C. Auguste
Dupin, the fictional detective who would become the prototype for hundreds of other legendarysleuths 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 Museum celebrated the 170th anniversary of the birth of the detective story
with a newexhibit, “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 techniques 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 stories. 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 newseason 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 Inquisition will take visitors on a tour of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” On October 30, kids can learn about Poe while playing Poeinspired 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.
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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
Notes from the Education Department
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The Education Department has
had quite a busyspring. 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 Museum during the month of April
alone and bookings are still coming in for May and well into June.
We have even had a fewbookings
for the fall months already.
In addition to our programs 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 featuring 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
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
II
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Price and Poe: A Match Made in Hell
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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 between 1960 and 1970. Through his work, Vincent Price introduced generations 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 Unhappy 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 announce which of them was to have further adventures in a
“new” tale from the esteemed Mr. Poe. This seems to have provided 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.
Thankfully, 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 rewarded not only with a fun murder mystery, but with a beautiful rainbowthat 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
knowfor certain that whatever occurs will be a lot of fun. For more information on Unhappy 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
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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 psychological terror, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was twenty-seven years old when he married his thirteenyear-old cousin Virginia, who would followhim 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 knewhim better than anyone throughout his brief and turbulent career.
Author Lenore Hart set out to try to right this wrong with her newhistorical fiction
book, The Raven’s Bride, a novel written from the point of viewof 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 fewpassages from the novel and answered questions from the audience.
III
A Poetic Wedding
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 before arriving in Richmond, VA. With only prior email correspondence, I met the couple in person Monday May 9th, the day before 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 wedding 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 Canada. 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 conditions 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 joyful applause of this small yet exuberant gathering of people, and
looked out the windowjust 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 allowrentals of the Garden year round! Email me at jamie@ poemuseum.org for more
information.
~JME
IV
Museum Collection Grows
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 generosityof 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 Basmenji, who also filmed the Museum for BBC Persia). The Museum 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
NewJersey, who is pictured above with her artwork).
Eureka!
Most people have never heard of the book Poe considered his
masterpiece. In fact, even literary scholars have tended to dismiss 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 explanation 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 HarryPoe, an Edgar™ Award-winning author and Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.
If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Poe’s theories on physics, astronomy, philosophy, inspiration, or just
about anything else, visit the Eureka Project at http://www.poeeureka.com/.
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Thanks to Our Donors
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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
Susan Jaffe Tane Foundation
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 LibraryTrust
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
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
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 members have given us over the course
of the past eighty-eight years. For
those of you who are not members or who are considering renewing a membership, these are
the current membership and contributor 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.
Jackie Kriese
V
Address Correction Requested
Forwarding Postage Guaranteed
Contact us:
Phone: 804-648-5523
Fax: 804-648-8729
Toll-Free: 888-21-EAPOE
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.poemuseum.org
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Poe Museum Upcoming Events
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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 Amontillado. 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 Garden? 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 growup 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.