The irony of course is that hardly any one attended his funeral in 1849; no marker on his grave for a couple of decades afterward.
Nowadays, Baltimore loves Edgar Allan Poe. So does Richmond, Virginia. However, there’s also a fellow from Philadelphia who is arguing that Poe not only belongs to that city, his remains should be moved there as well. The NY Times has the story in “Baltimore Has Poe; Philadelphia Wants Him “
[…] last year Edward Pettit, a Poe scholar in Philadelphia, began arguing that Poe’s remains belong in Philadelphia. Poe wrote many of his most noteworthy works there and, according to Mr. Pettit, that city’s rampant crime and violence in the mid-19th century framed Poe’s sinister outlook and inspired his creation of the detective fiction genre.
An old-fashioned debate has been scheduled between Pettit and Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House in Baltimore. And as you can see, a lot of this is tongue in cheek:
“Philadelphia can keep its broken bell and its cheese steak, but Poe’s body isn’t going anywhere,” said Jeff Jerome […]
“If they want a body, they can have John Wilkes Booth,” Mr. Jerome added, referring to Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, who is also buried in Baltimore.
Via Jacket Copy.
One of my favorite writers, who has influenced my own writing immeasurably over the years. His combination of dark humor, idealism, suspicion of authority, and willingness to deal with the fantastical in everyday life (although he has distanced himself from the SF label in the past) line up with my own inclinations in a lot of ways, not to mention the keen sense of life in the clutches of time (or not, as the case may be). Absolutely among the greatest of American writers. Perhaps the reincarnation of Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe in one person.