Knowing Poe: The Literature, Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe... In Baltimore and Beyond



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John Astin as Edgar Allan Poe

Transcript of John Astin as Edgar Allan Poe

People often think that I relied only on my imagination when I wrote my tales. To the contrary! Consider, for example, my story "Berenice." I wrote it here in Baltimore-on a bet, actually, that I couldn't write something serious about such a grisly topic. What topic? You've not read the story? The tale tells of a woman who was buried while she was still alive. A simply gruesome account. But, in my time, people were very worried about this happening. The newspapers at the time published stories of people who had suffered such a terrible fate.



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