(F). THE NEW HORRORS: Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is considered among the most popular and influentual authors in the world. Already in the mid 19th century, the French poet Charles Baudelaire championed the young American whos is credited with discovering the genres of horror and of detective stories. I was always a voracious reader (I read Anna Karenina when I was in third grade) but the two authors who are most responsible for development of my imagination were the Frenchman Jules verne and most of all Edgar Allan Poe.. So it happened that when, after 22 years of teaching, I was isolated at home due to Covid pandemic, I started writing several short novels–horrors based on the life of Poe. The first was Hamlet in Baltimore, a fictionalized account of little Edgar’s childhood and the incluences on his later writing. This was followed by The Blue Bottle, that I call “a romantic horror”. It is inspired by the marriage of the 37-year-old Poe. to his 13 years old first cousin Virginia Clemm. The third and final part of my Poe trilogy is called The Golden Watch–A Murder at the Washington Hospital. This one is my entry into the mirriads of conjectures, how did Poe die. Was he poisoned? Was an Alcoholic poisoning due to drinking 14 bottles of whiskey during an election? Were there other even more sinister reasons? You will have to read The NEW HORRORS to find out.