Gaylin assumes that attempts to solve the riddle of Poe's death confront two mysteries: "how did he come to be discovered in a tavern in East Baltimore, and what illness or condition actually brought him down?" (p. 3). No suspense is ruined if the most likely "illness or condition" involves alcohol, which Poe did not handle well. Readers still debate the 42 possible causes of death adduced by Gaylin in his endearingly obsessive appendix. By all accounts, Poe deteriorated after his wife's death in January 1847. Returning from Virginia in 1849, he was found incoherent in Baltimore, then a "hotbed of criminality" (p. 89). Because Poe never recovered, the mystery of his death endures, complicated by the work of Dr. John Moran, who oversaw "the hospital in which Edgar Allan Poe perished" (p. 149). For Gaylin, "no one has done more [than Moran] to mislead those seeking the facts of Poe's final days" (p. 149). However, Moran wrote "only in defense" of Poe, while the notorious Rufus Griswold "endeavored as much mythology in his effort to maim the poet's reputation" (p. 165). Recommended. All readers.

Choice Reviews

David F. Gaylin has set out to solve the greatest literary mystery of the nineteenth century—the cause of Edgar Allan Poe's death. In the process, Gaylin has sorted through dozens of strange and contradictory accounts of Poe's final days, and he has scrutinized an eccentric cast of eyewitnesses. This investigation offers a readable, well-paced detective story that will appeal to both Poe scholars and the general public.

Chris Semtner, Curator, Poe Museum, Richmond, VA

This book makes an important contribution to studies of Poe by weaving the varied accounts, opinions, and scholarly theories about Poe's death into a coherent narrative. While Gaylin proposes an answer to the mystery, the book's greatest value lies in its presentation of material allowing for the specialist and the amateur to make their own informed decisions.

Harry Lee Poe, Charles Colson University Professor of Faith & Culture, Union University