Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture

Edgar Allan Poe has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, comics, film, and other media. Besides his works, the legend of Poe himself has fascinated people for generations. His appearances in popular culture often envision him as a sort of "mad genius" or "tormented artist," exploiting his personal struggles. Many depictions of Poe interweave with his works, in part due to Poe's frequent use of first-person narrators, suggesting an assumption that Poe and his characters are identical.

This article focuses specifically on the historical Edgar Allan Poe making appearances in fiction, television, and film.

Fiction

• "Revenant", a short story by Walter de la Mare, first published in The Wind Blows Over, 1936, in which Poe listens to a modern lecture on his life & works, then takes the lecturer to task for making facile judgements.
• "When It Was Moonlight", a short story by Manly Wade Wellman appeared in the February 1940 issue of Unknown
• "The Gentleman From Paris", a short story by John Dickson Carr, first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (April 1950), features an unidentified Poe, sitting in a bar in New York, solving a Dupin–like mystery for the title character. Poe disappears before he can receive a substantial reward six months before his death.
• "Richmond, Late September, 1849", a short story by Fritz Leiber, first published in Fantastic, February 1969, in which Poe meets a woman claiming to be the sister of Charles Baudelaire but who may in fact be Death. Poe died October 7, 1849, in Baltimore.
• A Singular Conspiracy (1974) by Barry Perowne; A fictional treatment of the unaccounted period from January to May of 1844, in which Poe, under an assumed name, visits Paris in a failed effort to join French volunteer soldiers headed to aid Poland against Russia, instead meeting the young Charles Baudelaire and designing a conspiracy to expose Baudelaire's stepfather to blackmail, to free up Baudelaire's captive patrimony.
• The Last Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe: The Troy Dossier (1978) is a novel by Manny Meyers which features Poe aiding the New York City police department in 1846 to solve a pair of murders.
• The Man Who Was Poe (1989), a juvenile novel by Avi, features a young boy named Edmund befriending C. Auguste Dupin, who is actually Poe himself. Edmund and "Dupin" solve several mysteries in Providence, Rhode Island.
• The Hollow Earth (1990), a novel by Rudy Rucker in which Poe explores the inhabited center of the world
• The Black Throne (1990), a science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen features Poe as one of the main characters alongside a parallel world alter ego, master sargent Edgar Perry (Poe's alias when he was in the Army). The novel quotes Poe's poems and uses them as inspiration for the plot; one scene is similar to "The Pit and the Pendulum."
• Route 666 (1993), a satirical cyberpunk novel in the Dark Future series by Kim Newman (writing as Jack Yeovil), features a ramshackle Eddy Poe chanelling Cthulhu.
• The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe (1997) by George Egon Hatvary, features Poe's fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin befriending the author and subsequently investigating his mysterious death.
• The Lighthouse at the End of the World by Stephen Marlowe (1995) concentrates on Poe's last week alive and has C. Auguste Dupin trying to solve his disappearance
• Nevermore (1999), The Hum Bug (2001), The Mask of Red Death (2004), and The Tell-Tale Corpse (2006) novels by Harold Schechter. Nevermore depicts an intelligent, crime-solving Poe teamed up with the adventurous man of action, Davy Crockett.
• Lenore: The Last Narrative of Edgar Allan Poe (2002) is a novel by Frank Lovelock that fictionalizes Poe's final days before his death. The story is presented as a delirious dream Poe has while in the hospital. C. August Dupin makes an appearance along with Lenore, depicted as a woman in love with a runaway slave named Reynolds. Lovelock weaves Poe's own letters and works into the story; direct quotes are acknowledged in bold, italicized text with notes on their origins.
• The American Boy (2003) by Andrew Taylor an historical mystery story featuring Poe as a schoolboy in England.
• The Poe Shadow (2006) by Matthew Pearl, a novel which revisits the strange events surrounding Poe's death.
• A fictionalized younger Poe was a main character in Louis Bayard's The Pale Blue Eye, published in May 2006. Poe investigates a mysterious death during his time at West Point. Bayard emphasizes the young Poe's drinking habits.
• The Blackest Bird (2007)by Joel Rose featured Poe as a main character. The novel which correctly follows some of Poe's history in writing and in his personal life.
• The Lemony Snicket book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, have Mr. Poe, with his children Edgar and Albert, as a guardian of the Baudelaire children.
• The Lost Kings reveals a society bent on terrorizing it followers. The Law of Dis, led by a man described like Poe aged after death, recreates a machine like that in "The Pit and the Pendulum," binding the protagonist to it.
• The ghost of Edgar Allan Poe is often referred to in Robert Rankin's The Brentford Trilogy books.
• A young Edgar Allan Poe, alongside Gullivar Jones, is the main protagonist of the novel Edgar Allan Poe on Mars (2007)by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier.

Comics

• In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe (2002) by Jonathon Scott Fuqua follows a professor who has discovered the last diary of Poe, allegedly written on the author's deathbed. The diary reveals that Poe's artistic inspiration came from selling his soul to demons. As part of the deal, Poe can only write while in Baltimore; his attempts to leave that city have dire consequences. The graphic novel from Vertigo Comics is illustrated using digital illustrations and photography by Steven Park and Stephen John Phillips, respectively.
• Batman: Nevermore (2003) is an Elseworlds mini-series from DC Comics written by Len Wein, with art by Guy Davis. In the story Batman teams up with Poe to solve a number of murders.
• The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo by Dwight MacPherson, is a webcomic originally published on DrunkDuck, which was collected into a trade paperback by ShadowLine. It follows Poe's adventures after he accidentally gets flushed down an outhouse.

Television

• Dickens of London (1976), a television miniseries featured Samuel Matthews as Poe.
• Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1999), where Poe is played by actor "Edgar Allan Poe IV" in the episode "Episode LXXXI: The Phantom Menace." Edgar Allan Poe IV claims he is the great-great-great-grandnephew of Edgar Allan Poe.
• In the episode "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II" (2006) of The Venture Bros., Brock Samson, Hank, and Dean, team up with Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Caligula, Brock Samson (past), and Sigmund Freud.
• The 2007 Masters of Horror episode "The Black Cat" wove elements of Poe's life in with the story of the same name. Poe was played by Jeffrey Combs, a horror movie veteran who has worked closely on a number of Stuart Gordon's (the director) previous projects.

Plays

• Actor John Astin, who performed as Gomez in The Addams Family television series, is an ardent admirer of Poe, whom he resembles, and in recent years has starred in a one-man play based on Poe's life and works, Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight.

• Another Poe impersonator is Baltimore-native David Keltz, notable as the star actor in the annual Poe birthday celebration at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground every January.

• In 2005, a reading of the Broadway-bound musical "Poe" was announced, with a book by David Kogeas and music and lyrics by David Lenchus, featuring Deven May as Edgar Allan Poe. Plans for a full production have not been announced. In early 2007, NYC composer Phill Greenland and book writer/actor Ethan Angelica announced a new Poe stage musical titled "Edgar," which uses only Poe's prose and letters as text, and Poe's poems as lyrics.

• In the mid 90s The Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival in association with Nationsbank presented Edgar - The Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Jack Yuken at five south Florida venues. Kevin Crawford was Poe. R.A. Smith and Heidi Harris co-starred. Kermit Christman directed.

Film

• The Raven, is a fictionalized biography of Poe (played by Henry B. Walthall). The 57-minute silent film, released in 1915, depicts Poe's falling out with the Allan family, his love of his wife Virginia, and a few hallucinations caused by wine, one of which seems to inspire his poem "The Raven." Poe is also depicted as owning a "negro" (as named in the film), despite being in dire poverty.
• In The Raven (1935), the uncredited narrator of the "Spirit of Poe" ballet is clearly made up to resemble Poe.
• The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942); Poe is played by John Shepherd (later known as Shepperd Strudwick).
• The Man with a Cloak (1951), a film in which a hard drinking Poe (Joseph Cotten) masquerades incognito in 1848 New York - and helps a young French girl secure her inheritance.
• The Tell-Tale Heart (1960) depicts Poe dreaming the story. Poe is played by Laurence Payne.
• Danza macabra (1964) horror film directed by Antonio Margheriti; Poe is played by Silvano Tranquilli.
• Torture Garden (1967) horror film directed by Freddie Francis; Poe is played by Hedger Wallace.
• Nella stretta morsa del ragno (1971) horror film directed by Antonio Margheriti; Poe is played by Klaus Kinski.
• Gas-s-s-s (1971) had Edgar Allan Poe riding a motorcycle.
• The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974); Poe is portrayed by Robert Walker Jr..
• Tale of a Vampire (1992) horror film directed by Shimako Sato; Kenneth Cranham plays "Edgar", Suzanna Hamilton is Virginia and her reincarnation Anne, and Julian Sands is Alex, the vampire who completes the triangle.
• Monkeybone (2001), saw Edgar Allan Poe IV return as his namesake again.
• The independent film The Death of Poe (2006) focuses on the author's last days. Poe is portrayed as being forgetful, possibly as a result of an illness, and becomes a victim of cooping.
• Poe is an upcoming film written and directed by Sylvester Stallone. It is scheduled for a 2009 release.
• The film Descendant features two distant relations of Poe, and an appearance of the ghost of Poe himself.
• In the fictional comedy film, Lives and Deaths of the Poets (2009) Poe is portrayed by actor, Greg Coale.

See also

Poe's work has had extensive influence on culture:

• Edgar Allan Poe in television and film
• Edgar Allan Poe and music
• The Raven in popular culture