On this day in 1849, Edgar Allan Poe died in a Baltimore hospital. Despite his macabre literary genius, his life was short, and he was largely unhappy.
Poe’s death left a mystery that has lingered for more than a century. No death certificates seemed to be filed, and a local newspaper reporter described Poe’s cause of death as “congestion of the brain,” supposed to be a euphemism for alcohol poisoning. Aside from alcoholism, historians, and biographers suggested alternative causes of death ranging from lesions on the brain, epilepsy, and tuberculosis to cholera, syphilis, and even rabies.
Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his literary works in the horror genre. In his short stories, readers are regularly taken on a journey into human abysses. Many readers are still scared stiff by classics like “The Cask of Amontillado” or “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
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