(photograph by Evelyn Taylor)
Edward Pettit is the Philly Poe Guy. He's also a freelance writer, book reviewer, film presenter, professor and literary provocateur. He teaches writing at La Salle University in Philadelphia and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, the Mystery Writers of America and the Philly Liars Club.
You can reach him at ed@omnigatherum.com
or by phone at 267-625-8786.
High res press photos:
(photo credits: Kyle Cassidy)
Pettit's book reviews have appeared in the Las Vegas Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia City Paper, Greensboro News & Record, Chicago Tribune, Columbia SC's The State and The Record from Hackensack. He has conveniently posted them all here for your reading pleasure. He has also written features for the Phila City Paper on George Lippard and on Edgar Allan Poe, the latter causing an uproar he affectionately calls the Poe Wars.
After having spent the first twenty-seven years of his life in the same Philadelphia neighborhood (Olney), he now resides just outside the "Athens of America" in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania with his lovely wife, five daughters and lottsa books. He can usually be found on the third floor of his home amidst the tobacco fog of his pipe, head buried deep in the pages of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
He believes Edgar Allan Poe should be buried in Philadelphia (not Baltimore).
He doesn't believe Clement Clarke Moore wrote "A Visit from St Nicholas" (it was Major Henry Livingston, Jr.), but likes the poem anyway.
He believes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was merely the literary agent for Dr. Watson's true-life accounts of Sherlock Holmes' adventures.
He doesn't believe H.P. Lovecraft should have a volume in the Library of America.
He believes Christopher Morley should have several volumes in the Library of America.
He doesn't believe film adaptations of books should be faithful to the plots, characterizations or even the endings of their sources.
He believes Harry Potter books are for children and The Lord of the Rings is for adults.
He doesn't believe in ghosts, but MR James' ghost stories still scare the hell out of him.
He believes poetry should have form and meter, but is willing to make exceptions in the case of genius.
He doesn't believe Huck Finn is a racist book.
He believes George Lippard was one of the great writers of the American Renaissance.
He believes Thomas Chatterton was a great poet.
He believes Samuel Johnson's Dictionary is a great work of literature.
He believes Philadelphia Gothic is a distinct literary subgenre that will one day be recognized by all scholars and readers.
He believes one should have more beliefs than disbeliefs.
Prosit.