On the Trail of Edgar Allen Poe: A Guest Post by Mark Dawidziak
The peculiar life of Edgar Allen Poe has become a thing of legend: what are the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, and how did his life lead to that tragic moment? In our nonfiction monthly pick, Mark Dawidziak dives into the life and death of Edgar Allen Poe. Here’s Mark to give us the details on how this biography was a long time coming.
Paperback
$17.00
$19.00
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
In Stock Online
Paperback
$17.00
$19.00
Of all the unsolved mysteries out there, Edgar Allan Poe’s death continues to bewilder more than most. Mark Dawidziak parallels the mysteries of Poe’s death with the those of his life, and how they inform each other. This narrative is fresh and new, a unique perspective on a subject that never gets old.
Of all the unsolved mysteries out there, Edgar Allan Poe’s death continues to bewilder more than most. Mark Dawidziak parallels the mysteries of Poe’s death with the those of his life, and how they inform each other. This narrative is fresh and new, a unique perspective on a subject that never gets old.
The fascination began in the seventh grade with a purchase of a Scholastic Book collection titled Ten Great Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe. That well-worn paperback has been with me ever since, the foundation on which a vast Poe library was constructed. In my thirties, I determined to read everything Poe had written. In my forties, I consumed every biography and critical study I could add to that ever-expanding library. In my fifties, my wife, Sara, and I started offering a selection of Poe stories and poems through our touring theater company. And yet, despite all of that quality time spent in his company, I never considered myself a likely candidate to write the next Poe biography.
Well, no matter how observant or self-aware you may think you are, there are times in your life when it’s necessary for someone else to point out the obvious. For me, that someone was an editor at St. Martin’s Press. When Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone, my tribute to Rod Serling’s classic anthology series, was published by St. Martin’s in 2017, it did well enough for there to be a conversation about the next book. So I pitched the book idea I was sure would be a slam-dunk, can’t-miss natural. Problem was, this editor didn’t like the can’t-miss idea. He suggested a wildly different concept. I didn’t like his idea. I went to Plan B and tossed him my second-most effective pitch. That missed, too. Then his counterproposal left me cold, so back and forth the volleying went, until it seemed apparent that we had reached an impasse. That’s when, just as we were about to say our goodbyes, he said, “What about Edgar Allan Poe?” Poe? What made him say Poe?
For one thing, he thought the time was right for a new popular biography of Poe. For another, he said, “Poe seems to check all of your boxes.” Just how did he figure that?
“Poe is the father of the modern horror story,” he said. “You’re a lifelong horror fan, and you’ve written books about heavyweight horror topics, like Dracula. Poe is the father of the modern mystery story, and you’ve written a book about an iconic detective character, Columbo. Poe was a major nineteenth-century American writer. You’ve written books about a major nineteenth-century American writer, Mark Twain. Poe was a critic for most of his professional life. You were a critic for most of your professional life. How does he not check all of your boxes?”
I conceded the obvious, and thus opened the path that led to A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe. What made this path so rewarding was that the editorial team at St. Martin’s fully supported my vision for a non-traditional biography that would examine Poe’s life through the prism of his mysterious death – a book that would shatter the many myths and misconceptions about a much-misunderstood writer. And this wouldn’t have happened without a little help recognizing that the true point of origin was a small paperback bought by a twelve-year-old horror fan.