WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.590 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.590 --> 00:00:02.790 align:middle line:90% Wow, that was something. 00:00:02.790 --> 00:00:05.760 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Lee. 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:08.100 align:middle line:84% I like being introduced, I just discovered. 00:00:08.100 --> 00:00:10.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:10.290 --> 00:00:14.660 align:middle line:84% I should begin by thanking Daniel and Dana at Literacy 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:17.775 align:middle line:84% Connects, and Hannah and Tyler here at the Poetry Center. 00:00:17.775 --> 00:00:20.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.930 --> 00:00:21.973 align:middle line:90% It's really a pleasure. 00:00:21.973 --> 00:00:23.390 align:middle line:84% As I was telling them over dinner, 00:00:23.390 --> 00:00:24.723 align:middle line:90% actually, right before we came-- 00:00:24.723 --> 00:00:27.590 align:middle line:90% 00:00:27.590 --> 00:00:28.330 align:middle line:90% Am I good? 00:00:28.330 --> 00:00:28.790 align:middle line:84% If you could just be a little bit closer. 00:00:28.790 --> 00:00:30.082 align:middle line:90% I could be a little bit closer. 00:00:30.082 --> 00:00:32.490 align:middle line:84% As I was telling them right before we came over, 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:34.880 align:middle line:84% it's kind of like a dream come true 00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:37.610 align:middle line:84% when you spend a lot of your life 00:00:37.610 --> 00:00:42.260 align:middle line:84% studying one not particularly popular topic, 00:00:42.260 --> 00:00:45.470 align:middle line:84% and becoming an expert on it, and forming 00:00:45.470 --> 00:00:46.700 align:middle line:90% your career around it. 00:00:46.700 --> 00:00:51.680 align:middle line:84% And wondering, well, one day will this knowledge be useful? 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:53.690 align:middle line:84% And then your community says, we're 00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:55.580 align:middle line:84% celebrating the very thing that you've 00:00:55.580 --> 00:00:58.490 align:middle line:90% spent your life working on. 00:00:58.490 --> 00:01:00.590 align:middle line:84% We need somebody who's a Poe expert. 00:01:00.590 --> 00:01:01.820 align:middle line:90% And I'm like, I'm your guy! 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:02.480 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:03.170 align:middle line:90% I'm there. 00:01:03.170 --> 00:01:06.920 align:middle line:84% So anyway, it really has been a pleasure. 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:10.400 align:middle line:84% But with that said, what I'm talking about today 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:14.000 align:middle line:84% is not going to be the Poe that you might 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:18.020 align:middle line:90% know from popular culture. 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:20.300 align:middle line:84% I'm going to try to introduce you to a different Poe. 00:01:20.300 --> 00:01:22.250 align:middle line:90% So with that, let's get started. 00:01:22.250 --> 00:01:25.790 align:middle line:90% 00:01:25.790 --> 00:01:29.930 align:middle line:84% If he can be believed, which is no sure thing, 00:01:29.930 --> 00:01:34.160 align:middle line:84% on Sunday, November 5, 1848, shortly after arriving 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:36.440 align:middle line:84% in Providence from New York, Edgar Allan Poe 00:01:36.440 --> 00:01:38.510 align:middle line:84% tried to kill himself by ingesting 00:01:38.510 --> 00:01:41.330 align:middle line:90% a large quantity of laudanum. 00:01:41.330 --> 00:01:44.690 align:middle line:84% If he made the attempt, he was not successful, 00:01:44.690 --> 00:01:47.870 align:middle line:84% as he would spend the following days making desperate, voluble, 00:01:47.870 --> 00:01:50.000 align:middle line:84% and repeated propositions of marriage 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:53.510 align:middle line:84% to a 42-year-old poetess, Sarah Helen Whitman, 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:56.870 align:middle line:84% to the increasing consternation and alarm of both Whitman 00:01:56.870 --> 00:01:59.930 align:middle line:84% and her mother, with whom she lived. 00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:01.850 align:middle line:84% So that was Sunday through Tuesday. 00:02:01.850 --> 00:02:07.280 align:middle line:84% On Wednesday, the still hesitant Whitman shows Poe some letters 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.430 align:middle line:84% that she has received warning her against marrying him. 00:02:10.430 --> 00:02:12.590 align:middle line:84% This frustrates Poe, and sends him 00:02:12.590 --> 00:02:14.780 align:middle line:84% to the hotel bar, where he writes Whitman 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:17.810 align:middle line:84% a drunken scrawled note of renunciation and farewell, 00:02:17.810 --> 00:02:20.010 align:middle line:84% and then continues to drink with a stranger, who 00:02:20.010 --> 00:02:22.010 align:middle line:84% becomes, in the way that drinking with strangers 00:02:22.010 --> 00:02:24.590 align:middle line:90% will do, his new best friend. 00:02:24.590 --> 00:02:26.270 align:middle line:84% The next morning, this new friend 00:02:26.270 --> 00:02:28.520 align:middle line:84% takes Poe to the daguerreotype studio, 00:02:28.520 --> 00:02:31.070 align:middle line:84% where this well-known portrait is taken. 00:02:31.070 --> 00:02:36.880 align:middle line:90% 00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:41.220 align:middle line:84% This would later be dubbed the Ultima Thule daguerreotype. 00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:44.310 align:middle line:84% That same day, we are now up to Thursday, 00:02:44.310 --> 00:02:46.980 align:middle line:84% Poe makes his way back to Whitman's house to the surprise 00:02:46.980 --> 00:02:48.520 align:middle line:84% of everyone, because he had said, 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:50.820 align:middle line:84% I'm leaving you forever earlier-- actually the night 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:51.960 align:middle line:90% before when he got drunk. 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:54.300 align:middle line:90% And then, anyway, he's back. 00:02:54.300 --> 00:02:58.320 align:middle line:84% And in a, quote, "state of wild and delirious excitement," 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:00.390 align:middle line:90% calls on Whitman-- 00:03:00.390 --> 00:03:01.980 align:middle line:84% calls on Whitman to save him from 00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:05.190 align:middle line:90% some terrible impending doom. 00:03:05.190 --> 00:03:07.470 align:middle line:84% Whitman hears these calls from her bedroom, 00:03:07.470 --> 00:03:10.860 align:middle line:84% and recalls later that the tones of his voice were appalling. 00:03:10.860 --> 00:03:13.650 align:middle line:84% Quote, "never had I heard something so awful 00:03:13.650 --> 00:03:15.690 align:middle line:90% even to sublimity." 00:03:15.690 --> 00:03:19.540 align:middle line:90% Therefore, Sarah Helen Whitman-- 00:03:19.540 --> 00:03:20.900 align:middle line:90% that work? yeah-- 00:03:20.900 --> 00:03:25.010 align:middle line:84% 42 years old, a respected and self-confident poetess, 00:03:25.010 --> 00:03:28.460 align:middle line:84% chose quite sensibly to stay in her room. 00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:29.990 align:middle line:90% But Poe wouldn't quit. 00:03:29.990 --> 00:03:32.510 align:middle line:84% And perhaps to rescue her mother, perhaps out 00:03:32.510 --> 00:03:36.080 align:middle line:84% of curiosity, perhaps out of exhaustion, after two hours, 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:39.260 align:middle line:84% Whitman relents and goes to the parlor to greet him. 00:03:39.260 --> 00:03:42.590 align:middle line:84% When she walks in, Poe hails her, to her embarrassment, 00:03:42.590 --> 00:03:47.060 align:middle line:84% as an angel come to save him from perdition. 00:03:47.060 --> 00:03:50.263 align:middle line:84% Her mother suggests that Sarah make him a cup of coffee. 00:03:50.263 --> 00:03:50.930 align:middle line:90% And that's true. 00:03:50.930 --> 00:03:51.890 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:51.890 --> 00:03:54.740 align:middle line:84% So after some time, Poe calms and they take him 00:03:54.740 --> 00:03:58.190 align:middle line:84% to the doctor, who diagnoses him with cerebral congestion, 00:03:58.190 --> 00:04:01.205 align:middle line:84% and sends him back to his hotel with a nearby friend. 00:04:01.205 --> 00:04:02.570 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:02.570 --> 00:04:04.970 align:middle line:84% Now, somehow miraculously, and this 00:04:04.970 --> 00:04:07.550 align:middle line:84% may serve as a testament to Poe's rhetorical powers, 00:04:07.550 --> 00:04:10.580 align:middle line:84% by Monday, November 13, one week after Poe 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:12.890 align:middle line:84% had arrived in Providence, tried to kill himself, 00:04:12.890 --> 00:04:14.870 align:middle line:84% failed in his desperate marriage proposition, 00:04:14.870 --> 00:04:16.519 align:middle line:84% drank himself to stupor, sat for what 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:18.769 align:middle line:84% has become the most defining portrait of his legacy, 00:04:18.769 --> 00:04:20.810 align:middle line:84% and then made an unhinged display for over two 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:23.360 align:middle line:84% hours in her parlor, Sarah Helen Whitman 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:24.905 align:middle line:84% accepted his proposal of marriage-- 00:04:24.905 --> 00:04:26.426 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:26.426 --> 00:04:29.970 align:middle line:84% -- on the condition that he never drink again. 00:04:29.970 --> 00:04:31.012 align:middle line:90% And he would drink again. 00:04:31.012 --> 00:04:32.262 align:middle line:90% And they wouldn't get married. 00:04:32.262 --> 00:04:33.660 align:middle line:84% Anyway, but that's another story. 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:36.740 align:middle line:84% So to commemorate the event, Poe has another daguerreotype 00:04:36.740 --> 00:04:41.850 align:middle line:84% taken that day, just before going back to New York, 00:04:41.850 --> 00:04:44.520 align:middle line:84% and gives it to Whitman before leaving that evening 00:04:44.520 --> 00:04:45.660 align:middle line:90% to return to New York. 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:48.600 align:middle line:84% Thus ends just another week in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:50.400 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:52.980 align:middle line:84% But why, you may be wondering, did Poe 00:04:52.980 --> 00:04:55.140 align:middle line:84% take the laudanum in the first place 00:04:55.140 --> 00:04:59.820 align:middle line:84% before being rejected, and then finally accepted by Whitman? 00:04:59.820 --> 00:05:01.980 align:middle line:84% Well, Poe gives two conflicting accounts 00:05:01.980 --> 00:05:04.050 align:middle line:84% of why he took the laudanum, each account 00:05:04.050 --> 00:05:07.350 align:middle line:84% to a different woman whom he professed love. 00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:09.090 align:middle line:84% To Sarah Helen Whitman he says he 00:05:09.090 --> 00:05:11.510 align:middle line:84% was so nervous about proposing to her 00:05:11.510 --> 00:05:13.260 align:middle line:84% that he went to the druggist for something 00:05:13.260 --> 00:05:14.790 align:middle line:90% to, quote, "calm his nerves." 00:05:14.790 --> 00:05:16.830 align:middle line:84% But taking too much of it made him sick so 00:05:16.830 --> 00:05:19.080 align:middle line:84% that he couldn't see her for two days. 00:05:19.080 --> 00:05:23.820 align:middle line:84% But to Annie Richmond, a young 28-year-old married woman who 00:05:23.820 --> 00:05:27.210 align:middle line:84% doted on Poe, and whose husband apparently had no objection 00:05:27.210 --> 00:05:31.620 align:middle line:84% to the flirtation, Poe writes the following account-- 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:34.470 align:middle line:84% "I arose," this is Poe, "I arose in Providence, 00:05:34.470 --> 00:05:36.900 align:middle line:84% and endeavored to quiet my mind by a rapid walk 00:05:36.900 --> 00:05:38.550 align:middle line:90% in the cold keen air. 00:05:38.550 --> 00:05:40.290 align:middle line:90% But all would not do. 00:05:40.290 --> 00:05:43.280 align:middle line:90% The demon tormented me still. 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:45.590 align:middle line:84% "Finally, I procured two ounces of laudanum, 00:05:45.590 --> 00:05:47.270 align:middle line:84% and without returning to my hotel, 00:05:47.270 --> 00:05:48.920 align:middle line:90% took the cars back to Boston. 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:51.140 align:middle line:84% When I arrived, I wrote you a letter in which 00:05:51.140 --> 00:05:53.090 align:middle line:90% I opened my whole heart to you. 00:05:53.090 --> 00:05:57.530 align:middle line:84% To you, my Annie, whom I so madly, so distractedly love! 00:05:57.530 --> 00:06:00.200 align:middle line:84% I told you how my struggles were more than I could bear, 00:06:00.200 --> 00:06:02.840 align:middle line:84% how my soul revolted from saying the words which 00:06:02.840 --> 00:06:05.780 align:middle line:84% were to be said to Mrs. Whitman, and that not even 00:06:05.780 --> 00:06:08.990 align:middle line:84% for your dear sake could I bring myself to say them. 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.540 align:middle line:84% "I then reminded you of that holy promise, 00:06:11.540 --> 00:06:14.000 align:middle line:84% which was the last I exacted from you in parting, 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.520 align:middle line:84% the promise that under all circumstances 00:06:16.520 --> 00:06:19.100 align:middle line:84% you would come to me on my bed of death. 00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:23.150 align:middle line:84% I implored you to come then, mentioning the place where 00:06:23.150 --> 00:06:24.620 align:middle line:90% I should be found in Boston. 00:06:24.620 --> 00:06:26.840 align:middle line:84% Having written this letter, I swallowed 00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:29.375 align:middle line:84% about half the laudanum and hurried to the post office--" 00:06:29.375 --> 00:06:30.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:06:30.810 --> 00:06:34.790 align:middle line:84% -- "intending not to take the rest until I saw you, 00:06:34.790 --> 00:06:38.030 align:middle line:84% for I did not doubt for one moment that my own Annie would 00:06:38.030 --> 00:06:40.650 align:middle line:90% keep her sacred promise. 00:06:40.650 --> 00:06:43.620 align:middle line:84% But I had not calculated on the strength of the laudanum, 00:06:43.620 --> 00:06:45.600 align:middle line:84% for before I reached the post office, 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:49.500 align:middle line:84% my reason was entirely gone and the letter was never put in." 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:50.060 align:middle line:90% So. 00:06:50.060 --> 00:06:51.630 align:middle line:90% So let's be clear about this. 00:06:51.630 --> 00:06:55.230 align:middle line:84% Poe was at nearly the same time professing his impossible love 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:58.500 align:middle line:84% for Annie, and suggesting he was going to kill himself in order 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:02.250 align:middle line:84% to see her one last time rather than have to marry Sarah Helen 00:07:02.250 --> 00:07:03.090 align:middle line:90% Whitman. 00:07:03.090 --> 00:07:06.510 align:middle line:84% And professing that he needed to be saved by Sarah Helen 00:07:06.510 --> 00:07:08.100 align:middle line:84% Whitman in the most dramatic terms, 00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:10.320 align:middle line:84% and feeling so anxious about her possibly 00:07:10.320 --> 00:07:13.260 align:middle line:84% denying him that he almost overdoses on drugs 00:07:13.260 --> 00:07:15.000 align:middle line:90% meant to help calm him. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:18.450 align:middle line:84% No one ever accused Poe of being dull. 00:07:18.450 --> 00:07:19.470 align:middle line:90% So why would he-- 00:07:19.470 --> 00:07:22.350 align:middle line:84% OK, why would he, given his apparent reservations 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:25.650 align:middle line:84% about marrying Whitman, be so insistent upon it? 00:07:25.650 --> 00:07:28.260 align:middle line:84% The answer is that Poe, for most of his adult life, 00:07:28.260 --> 00:07:32.010 align:middle line:84% had a single professional dream, to be the editor and proprietor 00:07:32.010 --> 00:07:34.200 align:middle line:90% of his own literary magazine. 00:07:34.200 --> 00:07:36.750 align:middle line:84% Whitman had, or at least Poe thought she had, 00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:38.490 align:middle line:90% money and connections. 00:07:38.490 --> 00:07:40.470 align:middle line:84% And in their marriage, he saw the prospect 00:07:40.470 --> 00:07:42.720 align:middle line:90% of finally realizing his dream. 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:44.880 align:middle line:84% It may seem mercantile and self-serving, 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:47.610 align:middle line:84% but when you consider how many times Poe had sabotaged 00:07:47.610 --> 00:07:49.920 align:middle line:84% his own self-interest in his life, 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:52.230 align:middle line:84% gambling away all his money in college, 00:07:52.230 --> 00:07:54.000 align:middle line:84% quarreling with his adoptive father 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.640 align:middle line:84% to the point of being written out of the sizable will, 00:07:56.640 --> 00:07:59.190 align:middle line:84% getting fired or quitting from various jobs 00:07:59.190 --> 00:08:00.720 align:middle line:84% over either conflict of principle 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:04.270 align:middle line:84% or, which is just as likely, consumption of alcohol, 00:08:04.270 --> 00:08:07.620 align:middle line:84% his choice to privilege his career over ill-fated romance 00:08:07.620 --> 00:08:09.540 align:middle line:84% seems like the first time Poe did something 00:08:09.540 --> 00:08:12.630 align:middle line:90% for his own best interest. 00:08:12.630 --> 00:08:15.990 align:middle line:84% I find that whatever happened on November 5, 1848, 00:08:15.990 --> 00:08:19.520 align:middle line:84% we get a sense of two different Poes. 00:08:19.520 --> 00:08:23.570 align:middle line:84% The one we know is Annie's Poe, the romantic Byronic figure 00:08:23.570 --> 00:08:26.780 align:middle line:84% who is madly and fatally in love with an unreachable woman. 00:08:26.780 --> 00:08:29.060 align:middle line:84% One who is dramatic to the point of suicide, 00:08:29.060 --> 00:08:31.040 align:middle line:84% and whose tortured imagination conjured up 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:35.270 align:middle line:84% poems and stories of Baroque death and grotesque love. 00:08:35.270 --> 00:08:38.330 align:middle line:84% In a way, we know best the Ultima Thule Poe, 00:08:38.330 --> 00:08:40.490 align:middle line:90% the one on the right. 00:08:40.490 --> 00:08:43.700 align:middle line:84% The Poe we know less about is the one who swears to sobriety, 00:08:43.700 --> 00:08:47.090 align:middle line:84% who determines to marry a much older, well-established woman, 00:08:47.090 --> 00:08:49.760 align:middle line:84% and who is prepared to commit himself body and soul 00:08:49.760 --> 00:08:52.070 align:middle line:84% to the prospect of changing the world of literature 00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:55.310 align:middle line:84% through an upscale literary journal of his own creation. 00:08:55.310 --> 00:08:58.490 align:middle line:84% This is the Poe of the Whitman daguerreotype, refined, 00:08:58.490 --> 00:09:00.530 align:middle line:84% professional, and deeply embedded 00:09:00.530 --> 00:09:02.990 align:middle line:84% in the tumultuous world of periodical publishing 00:09:02.990 --> 00:09:04.940 align:middle line:90% in the 1830s and '40s. 00:09:04.940 --> 00:09:09.770 align:middle line:84% And that is the Poe that I would like to discuss today. 00:09:09.770 --> 00:09:11.840 align:middle line:90% This is something of a risk. 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:14.810 align:middle line:84% The Poe on the right is so much more, I guess-- 00:09:14.810 --> 00:09:16.250 align:middle line:90% it's your left-- 00:09:16.250 --> 00:09:18.800 align:middle line:84% the Poe on your left is so much more resplendent 00:09:18.800 --> 00:09:20.900 align:middle line:84% in drama, excitement, and horror. 00:09:20.900 --> 00:09:23.870 align:middle line:84% That Poe is like a character out of one of his own stories, 00:09:23.870 --> 00:09:27.110 align:middle line:84% orphaned when he was very young, adopted by a wealthy Virginia 00:09:27.110 --> 00:09:29.270 align:middle line:84% trader who would later write him out of his will, 00:09:29.270 --> 00:09:31.100 align:middle line:84% married to his 13-year-old cousin 00:09:31.100 --> 00:09:35.270 align:middle line:84% when he's 26, an alcoholic, a renowned swimmer, a poet, 00:09:35.270 --> 00:09:39.033 align:middle line:84% a hilariously unskilled gambler, an amateur astronomer who 00:09:39.033 --> 00:09:41.450 align:middle line:84% correctly predicted some of the most startling discoveries 00:09:41.450 --> 00:09:44.480 align:middle line:84% about the universe but mainly for incorrect reasons, 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:47.840 align:middle line:84% the American poet who was rejected by America, 00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:50.630 align:middle line:84% but cherished by France, primarily because he 00:09:50.630 --> 00:09:51.695 align:middle line:90% was rejected by America. 00:09:51.695 --> 00:09:53.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:57.810 align:middle line:84% That Poe is romantic, and wild, and fun to talk about. 00:09:57.810 --> 00:10:01.370 align:middle line:84% So when choosing the topic for the Big Reads Connects Tucson 00:10:01.370 --> 00:10:05.990 align:middle line:84% event, why did I choose the other Poe, Poe the critic? 00:10:05.990 --> 00:10:09.560 align:middle line:84% I did so because Poe was best known in his own day 00:10:09.560 --> 00:10:12.950 align:middle line:84% not really for his poetry, of which only "The Raven" became 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:16.260 align:middle line:84% a giant hit, or his tales, though many of them, 00:10:16.260 --> 00:10:19.850 align:middle line:84% especially the detective fiction, were very popular. 00:10:19.850 --> 00:10:22.070 align:middle line:84% Poe was best known in his own day 00:10:22.070 --> 00:10:24.740 align:middle line:84% for his criticism, by which I mean his book reviews 00:10:24.740 --> 00:10:26.210 align:middle line:90% and his essays on literature. 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:28.220 align:middle line:84% And Poe's enduring influence on literature 00:10:28.220 --> 00:10:31.160 align:middle line:84% is not only in his invention of the psychological Gothic tale, 00:10:31.160 --> 00:10:34.160 align:middle line:84% the modern detective tale, and his pioneering science fiction, 00:10:34.160 --> 00:10:36.350 align:middle line:90% but in his literary criticism. 00:10:36.350 --> 00:10:39.200 align:middle line:84% Plus, his literary criticism shows a sense of humor, 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:42.470 align:middle line:84% acidic, dry, but humor nevertheless, 00:10:42.470 --> 00:10:46.550 align:middle line:84% that is little known about outside of Poe enthusiast 00:10:46.550 --> 00:10:48.260 align:middle line:90% circles. 00:10:48.260 --> 00:10:49.970 align:middle line:84% I hope I made the right decision. 00:10:49.970 --> 00:10:52.370 align:middle line:84% There are hundreds of books, and articles, 00:10:52.370 --> 00:10:55.190 align:middle line:84% and websites out there that can give you the romantic Poe, 00:10:55.190 --> 00:10:56.780 align:middle line:90% but my challenge is-- 00:10:56.780 --> 00:11:00.380 align:middle line:84% my challenge is to introduce the editorial Poe, who, to my mind, 00:11:00.380 --> 00:11:04.300 align:middle line:84% is no less fascinating, but much less well known.