Popular Poe
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore and the Peabody Conservatory of Music, A Program of Musical Settings of Poems by Edgar Allan Poe, February 6, 1936, Baltimore.
United States Postal Service, covers of 3-cent Edgar Allan Poe stamp, October 7, 1949.
United States Post Service, first day of issue Edgar Allan Poe 42-cent stamp sheet with portrait by Michael Deas, October 7, 2009.
Baltimore Washington Beer Works, Raven Beer coasters, 1998.
Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe, Classics Illustrated No. 40, August 1947.
The Gold Bug and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Classics Illustrated No. 84, June 1951.
Alex A. Blum, original artwork for "The Gold Bug" in The Gold Bug and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, 1951.
Jim Wilcox, original artwork for "The Tell-Tale Heart" in The Gold Bug and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, 1951
Rudy Palais, original artwork for "The Cask of Amontillado" in The Gold Bug and Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, 1951.
Paul Laikin, "The 'Hip' Raven," illustrated by Mort Drucker. Mad, June 1960.
American International Pictures, poster for The Raven, directed by Roger Corman, 1963.
Trailer for The Raven, directed by Roger Corman, 1963.
Accoutrements, Edgar Allan Poe action figure, 2004.
Over the course of the twentieth century, new editions, illustrations, and adaptations made Poe’s work more and more accessible. But these new versions tended to emphasize certain features of his writing: the unsettling psychology of some of his tales, the melancholy mood of his poetry, the dark atmospheres and weird settings he was so skilled at designing. Readers grew interested not just in Poe’s creations, but in Poe himself as a kind of fictional character—an American man of sorrows.
Today, Poe’s ever-present portrait adorns all kinds of familiar objects, from postage stamps to coasters. He has become a stand-in for the macabre, for an eerie feeling we keep on recreating, sometimes seriously, sometimes with a comic edge. This mythical Poe may blind us to the realities of the historical Poe. But the character we have fashioned is, after all, an index of our love, and of Poe’s own enigmatic powers—a writer of inventions, attempting to invent a livelihood out of words.