The Man who Murdered Edgar A.Poe – After Poe Was Already Dead

Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849. 

Then Rufus Wilmot Griswold went to work. 

If you’ve never heard of Griswold, you probably know his Poe. 

Drunk. Drug-addled. Unstable. Vindictive. Half-mad. A tormented genius staggering from one catastrophe to another. 

It’s the Poe who has survived for more than 175 years. 

And Griswold helped create him. 

An Obituary With a Knife in It 

Almost immediately after Poe’s death, an obituary appeared under the name “Ludwig.” 

It began: 

“Edgar Allan Poe is dead.” 

Then came the sting: “This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.” 

The author was Griswold. 

This was no affectionate farewell. 

Griswold and Poe had a complicated—and frequently hostile—literary relationship. Poe had criticized Griswold publicly. Griswold had reasons to dislike Poe. 

But death gave him an extraordinary opportunity. 

Griswold became Poe’s literary executor and eventually produced a biographical account of Poe that portrayed him as an arrogant, depraved, unreliable man. 

Some of the evidence Griswold used to construct that portrait has itself been challenged—including letters that he altered to benefit himself. 

And Griswold’s version of Poe stuck. 

The Perfect Poe Villain? 

It’s tempting to turn Griswold into the villain of the story. 

That’s almost too easy. 

Poe really could be combative. He made enemies. He drank, although the extent of his drinking has been exaggerated and debated. His life was filled with genuine difficulty. 

Griswold didn’t invent every troublesome fact. 

What he did was something subtler. 

He selected, shaped, emphasized and interpreted. 

In other words, he constructed a story. 

And here is where things become wonderfully Poe-like. 

Poe spent his career creating narrators whose accounts shouldn’t necessarily be trusted. 

Then, after his death, Poe himself acquired an unreliable narrator. 

His name was Rufus Wilmot Griswold. 

THE SECRET 

The Poe we inherited isn’t simply Edgar A. Poe. 

He’s partly a character created by the people who told his story after he was gone. 

So when someone tells you that Poe was a drunken madman, don’t ask only: 

Is it true? 

Ask the more Poe-like question: 

Who’s telling the story? 

And why? 

We’ll be returning to Mr. Griswold. 

He has quite a bit to answer for. 

Poe left clues. I followed them.