It's October, the month that ends on Halloween Night and in which Edgar Allan Poe died. He died in a suitably mysterious, curious, and tragic way. That unhappy event occurred 175 years ago, at five o'clock in the morning on October 7, 1849. More precisely, it was 175 years and 17.5 days ago as I post this. The word or words for a 175th anniversary are ridiculous, so I won't use any of them here. And there's no reason to celebrate such a sad and somber event. But we can at least observe it.
I have been writing about Poe and anniversaries and Weird Tales. It's strange to think that fewer years separated the death of Poe from the beginnings of the magazine than separate us from those same beginnings. I'll note that on October 6, 2024, the day before the 175th anniversary, the Baltimore Ravens, the only sports team that I know of named for a literary work, won their game against the Cincinnati Bengals, 41 to 38 in OT--October-time.
We miss you, Edgar Allan Poe.
Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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