Edgar Allan Poe in the Bronx

By Jean Harripersaud
January 6, 2010
Bronx Library Center
Poe Cottage at Fordham in the Bronx. Courtesy of the Bronx Historical Society

Poe Cottage at Fordham in the Bronx. Courtesy of the Bronx Historical Society

About 20 yards from the Bronx Library Center is the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage. Nestled quietly in a corner of the Poe Park, this small wooden farmhouse built in 1812 shows no sign of the great legacy of its occupant. It was here that Edgar Allan Poe spent the last 3 years of his life. Poe penned some of his famous poems in this cottage ( "Annabel Lee,” “The Bells” and “Eureka”). And it was in this cottage he experienced his greatest heartbreak - when Virginia died in 1847. Preserved by the Bronx Historical Society, the bed she died in can still be viewed by visitors as well as the armchair Poe sat in.

The Bronx Library Center paying homage to this great son of American literature has a special reference collection of Poe's work which includes the following titles:

Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849.The enigma of Poe. Edited by Warren U. Ober, Paul S. Burtness, and William R. Seat, Jr. Boston : Heath, [c1960]
818 Poe

Schulte, Amanda Pogue.Facts about Poe; portraits & daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe / by Amanda Pogue Schulte ; with A sketch of the life of Poe by James Southall Wilson. [Charlottesville : Research Committee and the Extension Division of the University of Virginia, c1926]
B Poe S

Quinn, Patrick F. (Patrick Francis), 1918-The French face of Edgar Poe. Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [c1957]
813 Poe Q.

Marks, Jeannette Augustus, 1875-1964.Genius and disaster; studies in drugs and genius. Port Washington, N.Y. : Kennikat Press, [1968]
820.9008 M

Winwar, Frances, 1900-1985.The haunted palace; a life of Edgar Allan Poe. Harper, [c1959]
B Poe W

Weiss, Susan Archer Talley, 1835-The home life of Poe. Norwood, Pa. : Norwood Editions, 1976, c1907.
B Poe W

Allen, Hervey, 1889-1949.Israfel; the life and times of Edgar Allan Poe. New York : G. H. Doran, [c1926]
B Poe A.

Gill, William Fearing, 1844-1917.The life of Edgar Allan Poe. New York : W. J. Widdleton, [c1877]
B Poe G.

Woodberry, George Edward, 1855-1930.The life of Edgar Allan Poe, personal and literary; with his chief correspondence with men of letters. Biblo and Tannen, 1965.
B Poe W.

Campbell, Killis, 1872-1937.The mind of Poe, and other studies. Russell & Russell, 1962 [c1933]
813 Poe C.

Chase, Lewis Nathaniel, 1873-1937.Poe and his poetry. [Folcroft, Pa.] : Folcroft Press, [1969]
811 Poe C.

Allen, Michael.Poe and the British magazine tradition. Oxford University Press, [c1969]
818 Poe A.

Jackson, David Kelly.Poe and the Southern literary messenger, by David K. Jackson; with a foreword by J. H. Whitty. Richmond, Va. : Press of the Dietz Printing Co., [c1934]
818 Poe J.

Didier, Eugene Lemoine, 1838-1913.The Poe cult, and other Poe papers, with a new memoir. New York : Broadway Pub. Co., [c1909]
B Poe D.

Ticknor, Caroline, 1866-1937.Poe's Helen. New York : C. Scribner's sons, [c1916]
B Whitman T.

Many of these titles and more can be found at browse.nypl.org.

Each year the Bronx Library Center features a lecture presented by the Bronx Historical Society on Poe, his work and life in the Bronx.