It may have come 160 years too late, but Edgar Allan Poe finally got a funeral that he deserved earlier this month complete with hundreds of mourners, Cadillac hearses and flowers. A man who only had 10 people at his original funeral because his cousin neglected to announce Poe’s death is now memorialized for the genius that he was as a writer.
“This is our chance to make amends for what wasn’t done in 1849,” said Jeff Jerome, the curator of Baltimore’s Poe House and Museum. The organizers of the “funeral” placed a replica of Edgar Allan Poe in a pine casket so people could get the feeling of being there when the actual funeral occurred. Actors also played the roles of his contemporaries, including Walt Whitman and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. John Astin of The Addams Family fame served as the master of ceremonies.
In addition to having nobody come to his original funeral, Poe’s tombstone was destroyed when a train derailed and ran into it before it even got placed on the grave.
Poe will forever be remembered for such works as The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum, just to name a few. Rest in peace, Mr. Poe.
