The Bibliothecary

I'll try not to take these long breaks from posting, but you know, life does get busy sometimes.

Drink up, EddyWhile I was away, an Edgar Allan Poe letter made the news. Turns out Poe once wrote that Baltimore was a dump and he wished that he would one day be buried in Philadelphia. What?! Well, that's the letter I wish would be unearthed some day. In the meantime, a lot was made out a letter Poe wrote to an editor in which he apologized for his drunken behavior:

Will you be so kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behavior while in N-York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me – but the simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying.

Nothing remarkable here. There are several letters by Poe apologizing or "explaining" his drunken binges. This letter was recently purchased by the University of Virginia for their stellar Poe collection. You can download an image of the letter at the Press Page (scroll down, it's in the right hand column) for UVA's new exhibition, "From Out That Shadow: the Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe."  Some of the items on display are from the Free Library of Philadelphia's collection.

Matt Athitakis, on his excellent blog American Fiction Notes, posts about the new letter.  And the AP article is here.  The London Telegraph calls it a "grovelling missive."

Man, I could really go for a julep right about now.