The Dark History of Edgar Allan Poe | Murder, Ciphers & Mystery (Ep 249)

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very spooky hello happy holidays everyone we're approaching upon yes the season I'm happy that to me and my family Thanksgiving has no other meaning except to Gorge ourselves on dessert and that is that I love that I did want to say because it is the holiday season and it is approaching we every year have started sending out holiday cards to our patreon donors and this year we have such incredible we like it was the coolest thing we've ever

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done so yeah we did it while we were on tour too yes so you'll never know where we were unless you get a holiday card so sign up for patreon no matter what tier if you're in an active tier you will get a patreon holiday card and you just have to be active starting you do just have to join patreon before the end of November so if you're an active Patron the month of November you will receive our holiday card just a few week later yes speaking of the holiday season it is the perfect time to ask your loved ones your friends your family your strange neighbors or I don't know someone at the grocery store for their ghost stories because we have been on a mission Karen and I since the beginning of our podcast to bring back the days where people tell ghost stories around the holidays gather around your fire or your Sandy Beach if you're in a warm place

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and ask people for their ghost stories in fact you know we're not going to be mad at you but I feel like you should have been asking already you should have been using every social encounter as an excuse to hear about the Paranormal but if you haven't this is the perfect time to ask because honestly here's a great example I find out weird [ __ ] about my dad like weird encounters he has ghosts he has seen alien encounters and he knows that we do the podcast I've talked about this stuff since I could speak and I'm still discovering paranormal encounters that my father has had so you never know who could be sitting on a gold mine of stories very true and maybe if you're someone who's like oh I've always wanted to write in but I feel like I don't really have any Encounters of my own this is your chance you'll collect an encounter from someone else a relative a loved one a neighbor a barista a barista and then you have an excuse to email us absolutely that's our call to action

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and also a couple more updates in the year 2024 which I can't believe how close we are to it we are going to be releasing if you are on patreon if you are a member of the only Phantoms tier we are going to be releasing episodes one week early and AD free and we're going to start posting one extra episode a month so yeah join us on patreon we're really getting into I mean here's the thing Karen and I have realized there is no end in sight of how many Ghost Stories We can cover and how many things we can research we don't have enough time we can hardly get enough of the fix so we're going to be producing more content and if you want yeah to stick your hands in the cookie jar I don't know if that works as a metaphor come eat our cookies join our patreon please eat our cookies a Al probably a good time to say

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this is two girls one ghost oh [ __ ] yeah two girls one ghost and we are your ghostesses that is Karen and I am Sabrina hi and I was going to say this is an encounters episodes but it's not it's a regular episode it's not it's a regular researched episode but I feel like there's news that you have you have a new item oh I bought a car in your possession yeah yes the car that you talked about and researched like every other day while we were on tour so everyone knows I am terrified of dying in a car accident I'm very convinced what a lead in to say you bought a car I think it's an important it's an important qualifier to this story Automotive death is one of the number one killers in America and I don't know where it comes from but for as long as I can remember I am fully convinced I'm going to die in a car like it is a very very real fear when I sold my car I was like great I don't ever want to drive again before I got my license like when I was 11 years old I told my mom I will

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never drive that I will never own and operate a car because I was scared I was going to die and I didn't realize that I didn't realize you were so young now it's starting to freak me out a little bit Sabrina I know I thought this was more like an adulthood anxiety no this is like a very real like I either died in a car accident in a past life or it's going to happen I do not know yeah I'm going to hope I mean not that I hope that your soul went through this but I'm going to hope it happened in a past life which is made why you so young were thinking about it yeah maybe so anyway I have that fear and so I truly like I waited to get my driver's permit growing up because I was so terrified of it like I had no desire like where most people were like I can't wait to get my license and be independent and drive I was just like I have no desire all that being said I was driving for almost 10 years I was driving a small twodo Honda Civic Coupe which is like a great car and it

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was you know it did what I needed it to do for 10 years but I was so small like I felt so small on the road especially in LA and people in LA are crazy drivers yeah so when it came to purchasing a car I did a lot of research of what is the safest vehicle and I also was like I kind of also want to treat myself a little bit so I got a Bronco sport hell yeah now you could just sit higher up mhm you're more likely to survive if you are in an accident which you won't be W manifest it but it's a very beautiful car it's beautiful and guess what the color is guess what it's called is it like witch's Cottage Green or something think of aliens be me up green I don't know Roswell green it is called Area 51 because no one knows what color it actually is and no one can decide if it's blue if it's gray if it's screen so they call it Area

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51 away have you looked really up close to look at the specs of paint color CU it might be all of those I think it does have all of them in it I think it to me it looks more blue gray than Green Oh interesting the photo you sent me I thought it was green interesting yeah it's the dress again it's the it's the dress gold and white or black and blue yeah let's goz so like the car that I had when I was in high school and then my brother took it over when he was in college was a Toyota Rav 4 and it was in the color pyite Micah and I always thought my car was green but other people would say it was brown oh and if you looked up close at the actual paint like specs there were three colors one was sand one was green and one was brown and so it was like however the the sky the sun hit it I guess whenever you're looking at it going to pull a picture of your car cuz I want to look again well

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we can do a test have people vote for what now it looks blue to me it looks really it looks like baby blue in this light right we'll we'll have people vote that's weird and decide for us okay it's tripping me out it is the dress I also am wearing our Zach Bean's haunted Museum t-shirt mhm that was a long tour they tell you it's 2 hours I feel like we're there for almost 3 and there's no place to sit like you cannot sit the entire time and they have you in the holding room for like 45 minutes standing or at least we were yeah I feel like I'm getting old like my memory of Zach Ban's Museum as I had to stand for longer than I wanted to we're old ladies but it was very fascinating I would love to do an overnight they have like the late night flashlight tour which I feel like would be just so fascinating especially down in the basement and in Peggy's room well there's no true overnight because we asked and they said not even Zach has spent the night there nobody has has they've done like plenty of

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Investigations but never like the full night yeah no no not like our Conjuring house where they're like see you at 8 a.m. and we're like we'll see if we last until then peek okay everyone also my nails match your hat there we go a little cranberry moment beautiful I was H I got coffee with a friend yesterday and we were walking and she and I had the exact same nails and she said that at our friendsgiving which I missed this year everyone showed up and everyone had the exact same nail color it's just the uh the color of the Season you're all picking up on the same Vibe I have not done my nails yet I am waiting until I leave for my honeymoon which you're about to do right after Thanksgiving Brian and I are going to Aruba for 10 days Aruba Jamaica oh you oh see I don't know I got a really great compliment at Ash and jury's wedding and the

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compliment was that I know every lyric to every song and you do yeah the person who told me after he said that he came up again and he's like I think you're 17 and an0 now cuz he was watching me sing them and I really do you were being watched but I was like here's the thing there's nothing else in there so so it's only lyrics You're impressed now but ask me anything else and the conversation will cease to exist I disagree you have plenty in inside that Noggin of yours the beanie makes my head look larger and full of knowledge but no we're going to a Ruba I've been to Aruba twice before and we're staying at a resort I haven't been to yet so I'm excited to see like a kind of a little different version of Aruba Brian's never been it's G to be so fun it's GNA be so fun we were between Aruba and then Brian had pitched a bunch of different ones based on some parameters I gave you param are you thinking rules no way

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very strict division that must come true or not at all we were deciding between St Lucia Aruba well Aruba actually wasn't even on in the cards at the moment that we were talking about this but it was St Lucia and then Brian had showed me some other really cool Resorts that we could probably only afford to stay there for like four or five days but they were kind of on these like private islands it' be us and like 12 other Cabanas and I was like absolutely that sounds like a horror movie Brian was thinking it sounded great and romantic and I was like no we're not going there that is the scariest thing ever God forbid something happens like how do we escape how do we live I'm not going to freaking swim through shark-infested Bohemian Waters no so then his sister was like oh we're going to Ruba for our honeymoon and we're like that sounds great we're going to copy you so that's how we ended up deciding on Aruba and I'm stoked cuz the water is always 83° the aloan will slap some aloe on my shoulders if I'm burning and I'm

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going to take down some mud slides that's the plan I love it and I cannot wait to follow along in your journey in Aruba and maybe crash it because I'm going to be jealous and it's the longest I've been without you I know especially after us being together for two straight months yeah I'm GNA be no phone I'm G to be like totally yeah but I can track your location Karen yeah but if I'm not if I don't have my phone with me how you going to know where I am right I'm just going to show up and watch you well people will see pictures after the fact but I'm excited after basically having to live on electronics for a while I'm excited to just be unplug yeah exist well until you unplug I'm going to tell you some creepy stories lovely this episode so you can tell from the title of this episode we are covering Edgar all po I have wanted to cover Edgar alen

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Poe for so long he is an icon he's so fascinating he's an icon he's a legend he is and he's extremely spooky so this is a two-parter when you think of spooky stories you think of Edgar alen Poe at least me like that's one of the first things I think of yes you know he's an OG horror Thriller writer also in honor of the holidays coming up and in honor of K and I trying to stimulate this Resurgence of ghost stories around the holidays we decided to cover the man who was a massive part of telling horror stories and spooky stories around the holidays I'm going to begin this episode with a quote from Ed gr Poe himself and I believe it sums up the two episodes quite well the boundaries which divide life from Death are at best shadowy and vague who should say where one ends and

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where the other begins I mean yes I agree this is part one Edgar Allan Poe a man haunted I feel like this episode is about to make me spiral into a what even is life sort of thing after that quote especially cuz I'm like what is the difference between the living and the dead how close are we are we the same is this a simulation H sometimes sometimes I miss when I was like 133 and just thought ghosts were ghosts sometimes I miss when I was just four and I didn't think about anything beyond what toy I was going to play with but I will say okay wait can I completely interrupt you for a second but this just reminds me of I saw a really funny interview on the streets style Tik Tok where someone was going around interviewing people and asking if they were a Barbie kid or a Bratz kid and he goes up to these three women and he goes were you Barbie or brat rats and without missing a beat the

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woman goes barbecue I was a barbecue kid and I feel like that's the only right answer now what were you I was Barbie and then I graduated into Bratz okay I never had a brat stall I don't think I I think I was Barbie and then Polly Pocket that was the track people either went Polly Pockets or they went brats Barbies were the Gateway though everyone Barbed but not everyone bred poly pocketed or Bratz did you chew on your poly Pockets because I feel like that was also oh something every poly pocket owner did I don't think I was a poly pocket chewer no oh okay so all of your little rubber coats survived they did yeah great I bet you were the kid who ate weird things me yeah no oh no no no okay that's an interesting assessment I feel like I love control so much I would Peg me as probably the one that

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would tell on the kids who ate weird things well definitely that too but just the way that you asked if I chewed on my rubber clothes makes me think that you did no it was the reputation of like I would go over to friends houses they would have poly Pockets without a doubt half the collection was chewed that's so interesting it was the reputation of the poly pocket kids those weird poly pocket kids who ate their dolls to clothes they would chew their dolls well this is not about poly Pockets this is about no Edgar Allen Poe and I actually do want to give a disclaimer this episode is kind of less spooky less paranormal and more tragic in the sense that this man lived a very very sad life which is why Edgar Allen Poe a man haunted not necessarily by Spirits or ghosts but haunted by life also I feel like that's right there the name of our episode Edgar alen Poe a man haunted oh it is

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and then I have part two's title is Edgar Allen Poe a man haunts perfect from Haunted to Haunter yes haunty to Haunter that's going to be on my gravestone haunte to Haunter I feel like we haunt people already which is great we haunted people from the living which is I feel like a special skill oh man I'm sure that there's some people that would agree that we haunt them but in different ways than what we're thinking just memories of our behaviors so we basically haunt ourselves don't we all haunt ourselves like we are our own worst enemies and our regrets our doubts our fears haunt us so like we are already haunting ourselves you're right so maybe we don't haunt anyone but I just assume that because anxiety we haunt ourselves we're

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doing fine at that deep questions here at two girls one ghost okay so EDR PO is recognized as the father of the detective story The Master of the maab and a Gothic horror genius his legacy is worldwide and probably pretty ethereal he is horror but his life too was horror and it was riddled with mystery and there's a quote that was written in the Memoir about about EDR Po and it was written that he was actually this was in his obituary in quotes Poe was a lunatic who walked the streets in Madness or Melancholy with lips moving in indistinct curses or with eyes upturned in a passionate prayers never for himself for he felt or professed to feel that he already was damned wow that's heavy curses a man evil a heavy existence so the question really is who was Edgar alen Poe because upfront I'm going to State this that the truth of

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Edgar Allen Po's life is pretty mysterious it kind of like when we had the crossover with celebrity memoir book club we talked a lot about Marilyn Monroe and how you know everyone kind of imprinted their own perspective of her and I think that does go with a lot of people in Celebrity and po while he was successful during his life kind of he didn't really grow to infamy and success in the way that we know him now and until after he died so a lot of people now have like kind of portrayed their own impression of him into history and yes his literary Works do live on but the truth of his life may have died with him the reason on top of all the other reasons I said this is because the man entrusted with writing the Edgar alen Poe Memoir his name was Rufus Whit grizwald absolutely hated and despised Edgar alen pooe how did they discover that how was he

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allowed to write the Memoir I don't know how he was the one like given that but they were enemies literary enemies Rivals and this was known okay in life so it's not like he learned about po life writing this and then decided to hate him he prematurely not prematurely but pree yeah had a rivalry and yet he was the CH imagine your like Middle School rival being in charge of writing your life story I mean it kind of was that Griswald and po were were Rivals for years and years and years and there's a lot and I I'll get into some more of the the petty rivalry between the two men but somehow wow Griswald became po literary executive and when po died he kind of died at the height of his career which it took him a really really long time to find success and when the Memoir was was released it was so vastly

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released that people really really took to it as fact because I think everyone was like excited to read this Narrative of an evil man you know given his writings given his work worked with The Narrative of Edgar alen pooe being an evil man which you know what perhaps this is Edgar alen Poe's greatest piece of work is that he wanted to be a mystery like all of his Mysteries he created and having a man who hated him and despised him WR his Memoir leaves this lasting confusion about po true who is he I know I was wondering if it was the same sort of thing if this was like a long con like if they what if they were lovers what if they never were Rivals but that was their outward appearance what if everything written about Poe is true but it was pitched to us in a way that we wouldn't ever believe it and so we always were questioning it it's definitely not true but who knows how do you know well because okay so basically this guy used

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a lot of like false he forged a lot of things to try to write a narrative about po but so that's to say that what I'm going to share with you today is what I've gathered based on you know a bunch of different research but again I think it's impossible to truly know the truth of Edgar alen Poe there are some things that are absolutely fact but then there are some things that are kind of we don't know we don't know the truth I am drawn to the tales of Edgar alen Poe I think the first time I read his stories I was in Middle School yeah yeah that's I think when we're all cuz it's part of every English class I think in Middle School like fifth or sixth grade you have to read a short story from po yeah yeah part of the curriculars it was and I've always been fascinated by him the same way I'm very fascinated by Mary Shelly I have a sickness in my brain one that drives me to horror and to Thrillers and writing stories like that and it's one that also draws me towards

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ravens and crows and so PO is one of my literary Idols what I also love about all of this is that Edgar Alan Poe loved loved loved loved Mysteries and believed that he could solve them he was so fascinated by murder and hidden messaging he believed that human logic could be used to solve them and this is a quote from him we say again deliberately that human Ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human Ingenuity cannot resolve basically meaning that anything humans do and create must be able to be solved by humans because it was created by human if that makes sense okay yeah and he became so fascinated with solving coded messages and cryptograms and ciphers and applied this reasoning to all types of stories and Human Experience I feel like he is the kid in the beginning of so many pre-teen movies like I'm thinking of

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basically about like Journey to the Center of the Earth I feel like I referenced that just a few episodes ago but that's what it feels like you know like there's a kid who is into all of the patterns and the Mysteries and unlocking things and trying to to figure out if like this is all that life is or if there is more and what leads to that and then they find a giant treasure map and then they go on a big adventure it feels like Po was on that on that track but he didn't get to to live the second half of the movie yeah it's fascinating because he was so intelligent like he really was a genius and was studying things so far beyond many of his peers that he almost was like too smart for his own good anyway I feel like the fact that I said this before but the fact that PO was the father of the detective story and the Mystery that I love the poetic symmetry of the fact that his life even is this great mystery and that he was the type of a person who was like well if you have all the clues there's

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nothing you cannot solve and so we technically have all these Clues to Edgar Allen POS life meaning we have the ability to solve and understand his life but perhaps none of us are ever going to be Keen enough or smart enough to actually do it unless we built a time machine which sadly has yet to occur what I do know is that his Memoir written by Griswald was used to grossly misconstrue the truth and destroy the reputation of Edgar alen Griswald basically saw it as the chance to defile the name of his Nemesis and no one could do or say anything about it and people believed this the Memoir was sold so widely that people were reading it and believing it and then continuing the narrative and perpetuating it so I'm not even going to name the name of that Memoir if you choose to read it just know that a lot of the stuff in that even the letters and quotes have been proven as forgeries and instead of reading that text I read a book by Troy

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Taylor called Nevermore the haunted life and mysterious death of Edgar alen Poe can I ask a quick question I'm not sure if you'll know the answer to this but was the forgery and the lying found out when that man was still alive who wrote I don't know this I don't know like did he ever was he reprimanded in any way for completely lying about this huge historical literary figure okay well this is going to be a very mean statement have you ever heard of his name before I said it no and in fact I can't remember his name right now which is why I'm just saying that man so I think that is an answer he did suffer because what he wanted get yeah basically po has won they were Nemesis NE nemesi nemy I don't know with that being said and with the preference of this is a bit of a mystery this is part one Edgar Alan Poe a man haunted in The Following episode and in

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part two I will dive into the life the mystery and then the hauntings of Edgar Alan Poe we will discuss his background his Endeavor into literature his battle with many different demons his betrayals and ultimately his mysterious departure from this Earthly realm and his spirit that lives on everm ever more so as some background I say a man haunted because po life was as many people could probably guess based on his writings and his interest in the darker Tales was filled with lots of trauma tragedy and heartache one quote from a man named Dr Elliot Engle said po had the most bizarre grotesque and pathetic life of anyone we've ever studied I don't like the word pathetic being used to describe anything I think it's more of just like not pathetic and a shameful way but pathetic in a heart aing I think when

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that word was used it had a little bit of a different context or meaning okay I'm like that's really mean that is bullying but also at the same time po who had such a gift did battle a lot with some demons that led him to living somewhat of a troubled and I wouldn't use the word pathetic but you could understand why the word pathetic is used if you once we yeah conclude part one you will have more context okay Edgar Alan Poe was the second child of David and Eliza Poe and he was the son of two primarily stage actors Eliza was this incredibly talented beautiful entrancing and interesting actress so much so that when David Poe Edgar's father first saw her perform he abandoned all plans for his life and joined her theater troop because he was so in love with her and wanted to marry her so he was on his way to become a lawyer and just abandoned all of that and joined an acting Troop

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that is I don't know how I feel about that because initially I'm like wow what romance like that is crazy love but at the same time I'm like is that a stable person no like is this like love bombing is this stocking Obsession yeah yeah exactly anyway it ended up working out David joins the acting troop apparently this is again this is very sad and I feel bad repeating it but when I heard this I was like this is I think a very important thing to note about Po's Father David and Eliza performed together in a lot of different things and there is a quote from one performance from a Critic and it said the following the lady was young and pretty evinced Talent both as a singer and an actress the gentleman was literally nothing my God the theme of this episode feels like couples like two people

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paired together and one of them is great and the other one is just being [ __ ] on by the universe it does have that through line throughout this episode I think it's pretty relevant to PO story that his father who wanted to find success ended up being regarded as literally nothing literally nothing like that is worse than being regarded like to be thrown in your face that you have no regard or purpose in life whatsoever right it's not like wow that performance really sucked this person should not be in this role it's just like this person was so unremarkable that I can't even Beyond this sentence being written they'll never be thought of again right anyway David and Eliza get married and they have one son William Henry Leonard Poe who was born January 30th of 1807 who ends up being Edgar's older brother and Edgar Alan Poe is born in Boston Massachusetts on January 19th 1809 very

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very sadly tragedy struck po almost immediately because at just one-year-old his father left the family up and left I think he fell in love with someone else I don't really know he left he abandoned his family I think at that point now there were three kids so it was an older son Edgar and then a daughter and if that were not tragic enough for a young child 's mother Eliza fell ill of tuberculosis and died one year later so at just 2 years old Edgar po was an orphan wow I didn't realize he was orphan so young so young also just so everyone knows he was born Edgar poe just Edgar Poe so yeah at 2 years old he was an orphan and I ended up reading this story that I thought was so fascinating because before her death Eliza was playing the role of Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and would bring her children to the

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theater to come see her performances she performed eight performances a week and night after night Edgar his brother and sister sat front row watching his mother perform if you know Romeo and Julet it ends with a tragic death so night after night eight times a week little tiny Edgar watched his mother stab herself and die on stage be dragged off stage as a dead body and then be very confused when moments later he would after the performance see his mother alive I mean no wonder he was the way he was right like that was the beginning of his writing mind right of being obsessed with darkness and death and murder yes mystery so I literally wrote I can't imagine that's beneficial for the development of a child but I imagine it was very beneficial to the development of a horror author and literary writer

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so already at 2 years old you can tell tragedy and Trauma is informing the upbringing of Po's adolescence he was effectively on his own at 2 years old he was sent to foster homes until he was taken in by a John and Francis Allen who took po into their home in Richmond Virginia Allen was a tobacco Merchant and very well off and so John and Francis Allen never officially adopted po but they very much took him in as if he was their own and gave him the name Edgar Allen Poe so basically took on makes sense the additional last name right they were raising him they're basically his parents now yeah 2 years old but it was spelled a l l a an and over time it's become an e h did it switch when Edgar was alive and that was a choice of his own to like make sure that people weren't misspelling his name like was that h was that something that bothered him or he just wanted it to be

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more of a universal spelling or is it something that happened after because it's like people don't didn't know and he wasn't there to correct them interesting I don't know I wouldn't be surprised if he changed it because he was like super into ciphers and stuff and I wonder if he like wanted his name to be a cipher for things but I also wouldn't be surprised if it changed later I also wouldn't be surprised if he like chose to change it because as I'm about to tell you he was a very Petty man and he was really good at betraying people and cutting ties with people he did that with his foster parents but before that before I get to that point John and Francis Allen saw so much promise in po I mean he was from an early age you could tell he was a genius he was brilliant he was gifted with intellect and so they really sought to nurture him and help him become a successful man but it proved a little bit difficult and not because John and Francis were like difficult foster parents but because po was a pretty

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reckless and defiant young man there are a lot of details about his relationship and his life pose life but I'm just kind of going to share the more pertinent and defining moments to shape the image of Po so basically Allan wanted to encourage po to carve his own path he provided him with so many opportunities Financial educational all of these things but was very strong in discipline basically like trying to make Po understand the meaning and purpose of life and work for things on his own sadly another traumatic thing that happened to PO when he was young living in Richmond he befriended a boy named Richard and Richard's mother was so reminiscent of Edgar's own mother that Edgar became obsessed with her and he loved her almost like his own mother that's sad it's even more sad because this woman had a brain tumor and very shortly thereafter

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died oh I feel bad for Edgar alen Poe me too um yeah his life is really really really sad it feels like everyone he loves leaves or dies so it almost makes me wonder if like when he betrays people and pushes them away is that a way to in his mind to keep them alive absolutely or if he's not close to anyone then he can't be hurt when anyone dies right and actually this is interesting so a lot of his stories have to do with and if you're watching fall of House of Usher on Netflix it's a Mike Flanigan show but it's based on one of Edgar Allen Po's short stories I say short stories but I'm pretty sure it's like a 300 page story which yeah you told me that because I had finished the show before you and you like what did you think and I was like honestly it feels like a book to me it should have been a book and you're like well it was a book it was edar Allen POS book and as I did this research Ken I realized every episode is actually based on a different Edgar Allen po story like the black cat

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really is a different short story of poose you know how episode two what's his name the boy who has like the orgy yeah that is based off of a book called like the red mask I can't remember the specific but anyway all of the every episode is almost a different short story that is so interesting I'm sure there's some article where I can read like a very quick synopsis of like how it related what the stories were yeah I'll actually send an article to you it says like 12 of Edgar alen Po's most horrifying stories and like the true story it's based on and it gives like brief synopsises of all 12 of the stories and you'll recognize not only the things that happen in the episodes of fall of Hester but you'll also recognize the character names are taken directly from pose stories oh yeah interesting yeah Mike Flanigan I know snaps good job man but okay back to sad things when This Woman This mother like influence in his life passed away apparently po was so devastated that he

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screamed in agony and reportedly would go and visit her grave every night heartbreaking it's so sad I'm just picturing his little self he was a little boy I know oh man in growing up PO was given opportunity to travel the world he studied in Scotland London and ultimately attended the University of Virginia which was founded by Thomas Jefferson but let's just say po didn't have the best reputation before going to University he was pretty reckless he was brilliant like I said he was a genius but he was almost like I'm too smart I don't need to study and he was a little bit like pompous about it he had a lot of ego MH and so like he never studied he didn't really apply his intellect and was expecting because he was so smart and he believed so talented that success would just come to him he fell in love with this woman named Sarah Elm Royer Royer and proposed to her prior to leaving to University but her father was like absolutely not you are not marrying

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Edgar alen Poe like that's the type of reputation people did not want their daughters to marry this man he was so against it that he ended up having his daughter marry another man which again is another blow to PO in his heart and he's like these people he loved especially women are continuously being taken away from himh so he goes to University heartbroken it's also I think the first time his foster father was like all right you need to step it up PO I'm going to send you to this University I'm going to help you pay for the tuition but you are responsible for paying for everything else he was trying to teach him a lesson I understand that but unfortunately po let's see he blew all his money gambling right away in University and then he would beg his Foster father for more money and his foster father was like I'm not bailing

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you out and then he would continue to gamble and he racked up quite the debt he was just trying to feel something just Reckless what's the point of living if everyone around you dies just do whatever blow through the cash yeah and then he was so in debt that he decided to take on drinking because feeling something wasn't working why not feel nothing yep I've had moments like that unfortunately I know it's sad yeah so po was not great with money but he was great at drinking actually no he wasn't great at drinking because there's some theories that he was actually allergic to alcohol because even like one sip would cause like such insane side effects so he was drunk very very quickly wow and he at this time basically tried to publish some of his works but it wasn't very fruitful he was so in debt and so lost in the sauce that he this is Up For Debate he either dropped out or got kicked out of

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University before completing his first year so then he basically asked his foster father to help bail him out again his foster father was like no you got yourself into this mess I've tried to help you there's nothing I can do now and yeah you can only ask someone for money so many times before they're like I don't trust that this money will ever get you anywhere like forget about paying me back but like this isn't even going to you're not going to do with it what you say you're going to so what am my funding here exactly and Po in his as you'll recognize is a pattern starting here he basically is like f you Foster father how dare you betray me and not help me and so they basically become Nemesis nemesiz again and it's a pattern in life he drove his foster father away and made an enemy of him his ego getting in the way he basically refuses to return to Richmond cuz it reminded him of the Allens and so here PO is he's 18

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years old he's a genius with gambling debts and a terrible drinking problem and he needed money so what did he do he joined the army the only problem is he was too young he was only 18 years old you were supposed to be like 22 I think so he gave a fake name really how did when did that freaking change World War II I don't know World War I he gave a fake name Edgar a Perry and claimed he was 22 years old and he joins the Army he's working there I think for like honestly like sents he's getting very very little payment he tries to self-publish his first collection of poems called tamarlane and other poems but he only printed 50 books 50 copies and had no way to like advertise it so basically didn't sell any of them it got no attention and similar to his father if you remember his father wanted to be regarded and now one of his biggest fears is to not be

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regarded whatsoever which is basically what happened to PO when he published his first collection of poems yeah but I understand that it's so exciting and the leadup and the opportunity and the possibilities of it being something feels so huge and so it's such a big let down but I also feel like so many people if you look at their careers their first is basically just getting it out of the way yeah it's almost never what brings them notoriety so I understand his heartache but at the same time I'm like don't give up PO and he didn't keep going he didn't give up he did keep going yes I we know that yeah yeah clearly but you know what his story reminds me so much of like Picasso an artists of that era who suffered and struggled so much in their lives and didn't feel any fame or success in their lifetimes it was not until after they died that yeah their Estates and their names became notorious I might be butchering this but didn't Picasso like

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not even sell a single painting until yeah after death I'm pretty sure that's true yeah something like that like never saw any bit of success until after he was gone yep and so a lot of people in Po's life told him similar Sentiments of him being so talented and so he had this chip on his shoulder a little bit I think one he he didn't want to get close to anyone so he would ruin relationships left and right but then so he had a chip on his shoulder where he was like I am talented and I am great and I feel like the world owes me something and he was so confident of his talents but it didn't really happen in his life until he basically was fertilizer for the soil again this is going to be brief but I think it's important to reveal who he is so po joins the military and almost immediately is like I actually hate this and he wants out but he can't can't get out and so he basically tells his

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whoever's above him I lied I'm actually not John whatever I said or Edgar whatever I said I'm actually 18 years old and so then whoever is his commanding officer actually takes this opportunity I actually really love this this guy is like listen legally like in order for you because you are underage you were supposed to get permission from a parent to be in the military so now to leave military you need permission from a parent or a guardian John Allen who Edgar and John Allen are on the outs right now so this guy is like you need to reconcile oh interesting did po do it also sorry before you answer that question I'm just now realizing I was thinking of Van go not Picasso before any art people are but I do think it's similar I think a lot of them are like that yeah but so did he reconcile or how does that work what do you think he did I mean I would guarantee that he didn't do anything and probably just forged it

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all so he basically did a half-ass job of it it's kind you know what it reminds me of is like if you ever got in trouble in college and like judicial was like you need to write a letter home M you're like I didn't really do anything wrong and it's like sorry I drank whatever po kind of does a half-ass job he sends a letter back to John Allen and I think he basic what I read again I don't know what the truth is but I kind of think this would be I this PO when he didn't like someone was like really like he the second you betrayed him or turned your back on him or did something to slight him he laid into you like was so mean and would find the meanest things to say to you and knew what would hurt the most and say them to your face or write them to you and he was a very very talented writer so he knew how to use words descriptive yes hurt people hurt people you know yes so basically I don't think he and John Allen really rekindled

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things but very shortly thereafter Edgar finds out that Francis Allen the woman who raised him basically died he was not given any warning she was sick and he wasn't even aware and so he was not able to say goodbye to her or see her before she passed away so po return turns back to Richmond Virginia a day after Francis Allen who for all intents and purposes was really his mother was buried yeah also up until you just said this this whole time I thought Francis for some reason I thought it was like a male name and so I thought po was growing up with two dads oh until you just said this this is the 1800s Karen I don't think um I but I I'm so in the current century that it didn't even cross my mind it was not it wasn't that yeah okay so another

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mother figure passes away the third one yes and obviously PO is devastated he returns to Richmond Virginia and he is just heartbroken and in such a deep depression that I think he and John Allen do try to rekindle their relationship a little bit once again it does not work po goes to West Point which his foster Father John Allen kind of helped orchestrate but again po hates it hates it so much and instead of trying to you know work with his foster father or something he ends up finding some guy who needs money and promising to pay him so that they could swap places basically he's like hey come take my spot so I can get out of West Point interesting it wasn't like a come be me don't it wasn't a take my I'm like what was his plan you to swap into that person's it was more just like come I'll pay you to reprieve me of this position exactly and then it's a false promise po doesn't have the money to do it anyway

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so he's making another enemy here and finally at this point John Allen is just like I've tried everything you and I are done Edgar we are done and sadly they never rekindled not too long after John Allen passed away and his final Fu to Edgar was to leave him absolutely nothing in his will and this man John Allen was extremely wealthy he left Edgar nothing wow you know what I feel like Edgar not to say that you deserve something bad when you've had a horrible terribly difficult life but also this person was in your life trying to raise you since you were two years old and it sounds like I mean again we're not getting much more perspective from po like we have no idea if being raised by those people was like hell on in a variety of other ways that we just not aware of we're only getting the we were

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great parents and he just rejected us and everyone else we don't know what the truth is but I do understand a little bit from the Allen's perspective being like yeah he tried yeah we did what we could we our investment was the past 20 years yeah so at this point po has left a trail of enemies in his wake and it is something he continued to do he is extremely poor he is continuing to focus his efforts in poetry and writing but they're never really producing any income he moved to Baltimore Maryland where he lived with his aunt his brother and his cousin Virginia he continues to drink he continues to lose jobs he published a few stories but nothing really took off he became a Critic so he would like a literary critic so he would read other people's works and review them and he made a few more enemies this way because he had a strong opinion and he was not afraid to voice it and I will

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say he does remind me of someone who even if everyone's thinking it about someone maybe it's not best to say it but he would always be the one who said it he doesn't have much to lose and he clearly doesn't I mean I'm assuming a lot about his personality right now but it feels like he never goes into a potential like meeting of someone or relationship assuming that that will be a lasting friendship or like mutual love and respect he just already assumes everyone is going to hurt him in some way and so you may as well throw the F first punch I had this girl in college once tell me that whenever she meets someone they have to prove themselves to her before she gives them the time of day which was such a backwards thing to me because like to me no you get the respect that you give others back and that's what you should be expecting you cannot expect everyone to just go out of their way to make your life right amazing and to convince you that they're

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deserving of you like that that's narcissistic yeah again I think po had a little bit of that and it probably was a trauma response a way to protect himself from the heart that he was continuing to experience anyway po moves to Baltimore Maryland and he asks to marry his 10-year-old cousin Virginia she's 10 no he's like 20 I think he might even be 23 what the [ __ ] is wrong with Po and he was told he had to wait and I think I don't I don't remember all the details but I'm pretty sure he like found some loopholes anyway he marries his what the first cousin e no no no no no poor child keep in mind this is also the 1800s like this there's a lot more weird Crossing of what we think is appropriate these days I feel like everyone always knew deep down that that was inappropriate oh absolutely so they get married when she's 13 in 1835 po was 26 it was said

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and I think it's easy to say now but that PO and Virginia loved each other deeply and were one another's true loves and there are a bunch of love letters written between the two of them that you can read is this like a Priscilla and Elvis Presley sort of thing though it's yeah it's not cool a child lured in by an older more successful person but it's true love and he's not successful though but he still has power over her absolutely in every way sure yes so Po and Virginia get married in 1835 and then his elder brother dies again another person in his family dying he's heartbroken he's still dealing with his alcoholism problem and he's still trying to make it in the literary world and he does start to have some success he is working for Burton's gentleman's magazine writing reviews essays poems and being able to publish them in this

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magazine he has always had a dream of starting his own magazine and he was like on really good terms with this guy who owned the magazine but then he heard that the editor was trying to sell the company so po instead of like talking to this guy immediately thinks oh this guy's going to screw me over so I'm going to screw him over first and he like tries to quit because he's like if I'm not here the company won't sell as much and he tries to start his own company anyway it ends up backfiring on him he gets caught and he gets fired and he makes another enemy great what num is he had at this point it's hard to keep track racking them up a year later he finds a job as a writer and co-editor at Graham's magazine where PO is really really recognized to this day as a crucial part of the Magazine's success it was while he was there that Charles Dickens was coming into town in Philadelphia and Charles Dickens is you

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know we all know him he was at the time one of the most successful talented authors of that era and so po was like I really want to meet Charles Dickens he uses his job at the magazine to set up an interview with him and in order to set up this interview I love it it's like he he's so strategic he sends Charles Dickens like a bunch of letters and with them he includes all of the glowing reviews he's ever written about Charles Dickens and I think he once called him the greatest British novelist and so he's flattering Dickens ego and then he solves the mystery of one of Charles Dickens novels so he's proving his smarts and then he sends Charles Dickens one of his own pieces of work so Dickens is intrigued by this man Po and Dickens meet and I think they had like two interviews all of course so that PO can write a piece on him for Graham's magazine but while there Charles Dickens

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becomes so taken by po and impressed by his talents that he promises to help find a publisher for Po in England I do believe Charles Dickens was the person who published The Raven which is one of Po's most infamous poems and actually I found okay this is a fun fact little tidbit when he met with Dickens Dickens apparently was so heartbroken and he and his family was mourning were mourning the loss of their pet Raven and Dickens like because of the story po went home and altered the poem to be the Raven what was it originally about I don't know I don't know interesting wow I mean okay so he was totally pandering he knew exactly what could get him in the door and he was seizing the opportunity nothing wrong with that changing up the lyrics a little bit yeah exactly to get you published it's still fantastic okay so we can basically thank Charles Dickens for the Raven this is one of

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those examples that it's like sometimes my mind cannot wrap around the fact that there are certain people who are like household names who like we we learn of in school and that those people knew each other that they were friends or like lived in the same time period that just I mean I know that they're like of the same era but the fact that they were like in the same room chatting with each other that's so so weird to me I know to be a fly on the wall for that conversation mhm it kind of feels like one friend group becoming popular there's a lot of crossover here yeah so PO is finding a lot of success with Graham's magazine but when things start to get good what does po do sabotage yep and burn Bridges and that's what he did so while he was at Grahams magazine is when his rivalry with Rufus Griswald the guy who wrote the Memoir and kind of left this negative review and lasting image of Po this is where it

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began because while working at Graham's magazine apparently po accused one of Griswalds best friends of plagiarism which I think actually might have been true but it was a massive accusation to yeah it is especially when you're newer in your own career too not to say that you should you shouldn't abandon your own values and ethics just because you're newer at something but it's Al a huge risk yeah to speak out yeah unless you have concrete proof and maybe he did and I think there was a lot of stuff where I mean it's the same with today's world with creatives and art and or any business really where there's nepotism or there's preferential decisions made based on like your relationship to people it's kind of all who you knew you have to navigate the politics totally and I think po was very very against that and so when when he was continually seeing people succeed and find success because they knew someone like this one

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person I think his book was recommended in a major magazine because he knew the owner of the magazine and PO is like well this piece of work is actually a piece of [ __ ] it should not be reviewed as he's like I feel like you just channeled po the way you said that it was so but this is actually a piece of [ __ ] but like yeah that's how he felt and I mean I get that like working in the entertainment industry there are times where like I see movies that get made and I'm like the [ __ ] yeah how anyway so basically I don't know how it ends up working po somehow just decides to leave Graham's magazine and when he leaves guess who takes this job Rufus Griswald and guess what Rufus gets paid way more than po was ever paid why just cuz he was less hated I don't know I don't know necessarily why

1:00:00

maybe gisell was just better at negotiating anyway this rivalry just continues and the two continue to find ways to slate one another so in one example Griswald paid Poe to review one of his own pieces of work so Griswald wrote something and paid Poe to review it and po thought that was distasteful and thought that Griswald was trying to bribe him so he wrote the review and it was a positive review but Griswald said it wasn't a good enough review so he was mad okay well then I'm kind of on POS side here too because it's like you're trying to use me and my reputation and my writing to try to up your own career right now but you're you have power over me so like how is that an authentic review at all if you're editing it and insisting on what should and shouldn't be included or like what what's appropriate or not like that's not a review that's that's a sponsored post it's PR though that's what public relations are you just get the right people to say the

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right things about your work to find success but it's truly this is why I'm saying it's so petty between these two men there was like a time where Griswald could not ignore how talented po was so he was dragging his feet to include his work and tried to like put it in the collection of work in a place where like less people would read it like it's so petty it got to a point where PO he needed money and he even turned to his enemy he turned to Griswald like that's how badly po needed money he turned to Griswald asked for money I think he asked for $50 and Griswald gave him 25 which was like a slight to Poe and then he criticized Po's editorial skills which to be fair if PO is spending money really terribly he's not a great editor so the Rivalry continues po at one point writes a satire called poets and poetry of America and it's very clearly ridiculing Griswald and he's putting so much effort these two like these men are just putting so much effort into their Petty offenses right and it just like

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continues back and forth but po also continues to put a lot of effort into his incredible works of literature his poems and his tales he also at this time becomes so infatuated with ciphers and when he was working at Grahams magazine he did this whole series and he basically offered readers a challenge he told that any reader could send him a cipher a cryptogram of any kind and if he could not crack it they would be given a free subscription to the magazine that's a fun marketing tactic I think that's great it's great apparently the Zodiac Killer was like very influenced by pose work in the ciphers do you just spit your water out no but but I'm like starting to cry I'm laughing so hard you were shocked by the crossover of Edgar alen Poe and Charles Dickens but were you expecting the crossover of Edgar Alo and the Zodiac Killer probably not no I feel like I this episode I'm not safe saying I like

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anything CU I don't know how it's going to relate that I know it's shocking oh my God po quoted him like this is a quote from the uh challenge when he posted he said nothing intelligible can be written which with time I cannot decipher he's basically saying I'm so [ __ ] smart try me yeah like if I don't get this it's because you up you're dumb yeah this is wrong apparently po liked to tell people how Edgar po was actually an anagram for God peer the peer of God basically oh my God that just tells you what kind of person he was yeah okay if you're listening and didn't watch on YouTube I think I just strained my eyeball rolling my eyes so hard at that yeah but after this challenge was published hundreds and hundreds of people sent cryptograms and ciphers into po and he solved every single one of them within six months not a single

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submission went unsolved and to conclude the contest po decided to test the readers even further and he published two ciphers he published under the name Mr WB Tyler and everyone believes that it was an alias and he actually created these ciphers get this they were not solved for over 100 years stop wait okay edar Alan P for sure an [ __ ] for sure a narcissist but also I'm kind of I'm kind of amazed he's a genius by him at the same time yeah so who solved it was it one individual or was it like a historical or like literary society that had worked on for years so there's a bunch of basically in like the 90s people were doing a ton of research into too and the ciphers and there was like some group who put out a reward for anyone who could solve them the first was solved in 1992 and then the second

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was not solved until November of 2000 160 years later basically wow what did they even say what was this message so at the end of this episode I'm going to leave you with one oh we have to solve it well okay so there's a lot of basically the second one was not solved until like they needed to use a computer program so it was almost impossible to solve as a human so his brain is basically coding before coding even existed but then apparently people are like there's typos in it like did he mean to do that does it have a different message did we actually break it if like because they solved it by fixing errors if that makes sense which makes me think that that's wrong I don't know like do you really think someone like Ed gr and Poe would have that many typos well he may have written it and then when you look at it you're like oh this is really freaking confusing so he may have written it and then an editor someone else who typed had to type it meaning

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for printing so there could have there's room for error there going back to the Zodiac it is so similar to the Zodiac because there were a lot of typos in that letter which is why it was hard to decipher as well yeah anyway it has also opened up this dialogue of whether or not POS Works actually have secret and hidden messages within them I don't know if we'll ever know the answer to that but we do know that PO struggled to make a name for him self and even when he earned respect as a gifted writer and poet his earnings were so meager and barely enough to live comfortably the most he ever received for his work was a $100 payment and that was for the gold bug which was published in 1843 how much did that exist in today's money was that like being paid 3,000 bucks or something do you want to do that real quick yeah it is equivalent to $ 4,157 okay so it's a lot I guess for that time but yeah he was trying to fund a life for his wife SL cousin po did not

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follow our rules don't [ __ ] your cousin and leave children alone yes anyway he also has a gambling problem and drinking problem so he was not always the smartest when it came to negotiating deals for his work like for this I'm pretty sure he took a one-time payment and didn't get any residuals it's impossible to know how many pieces of work po wrote in total but we know he wrote more than a thousand essays and reviews while working at magazines he has more than 70 published poems and nearly 70 stories Tales he is remembered for the gothic horror and the murder mystery but he wrote on many topics there's a piece called Eureka which is hailed as a masterpiece and a transcendental explanation of the universe like he was exploring topics Beyond horror he wrote satire he examined topics of life and death in the universe he was a brilliant man with a

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desire to understand the world and if you remember his mom when he was a young kid performing dying and coming back to life a lot of his pieces have to do with reanimation of people dying and coming back to life see it did screw him up yes it had a very strong effect on him clearly yes and his work was greatly inspired by his life and the world he was living in so kind of to wrap up part one I wanted to talk about some of his pieces and what connection they had to his life many of his writings also deal with people being buried alive which is interesting I think five of his stories deal with people being buried alive which to me makes me wonder if he was afraid of being buried alive or yeah what was the connection there that's what I would have assumed because so many people died it feels like probably in his mind so sudden ly around him yeah that's true it probably was a nightmare where it's like he wakes up and now he's the one that's dead yeah and he's in the

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ground mhm but he's alive Telltale Heart is like the woman being buried and like her heart beating and he hears the heartbeat happening as the detective is talking to him yeah in 1835 po wrote Bernice it was his very first horror story and it told the story of a man who was so obsessed with his late wife's teeth that he digs up her grave and like is pulling her teeth out but he's so he's so fixated on getting the teeth that he doesn't realize his wife is screaming and that she actually was buried alive and is still alive oh what the [ __ ] yeah that is dark Disturbed that is dark that is so disturbing but I also love him for coming up with that I feel like I haven't seen anything that has Disturbed me like that in a while I know it actually remind reminds me a lot of France kfka like these really Disturbed characters in almost like psychological

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Madness and manic States yeah people believe that this was based on a true story that was in the news written in papers around the same time where there were grave robbers stealing bodies or stealing teeth from corpses to make dentures in 1842 po wrote The Mystery of Marie Raj and one of Po's most infamous characters is August dupen which I think is a character in Fall of House of Usher I think the detective's name is dupen I think you're right because dupen sounds really familiar it must be but in this book so this is the second series so he has three books about the same detective and this is the second one in that series but in this book Edgar Alan Poe sought to solve a real life murder I'll tell you the whole story but basically he uses a real life case but just changed the location kept all of the details the same and almost basically

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all the names are the same and he claimed he could solve this murder so this is the murder of the beautiful cigar girl her name is Mary Cecilia Rogers it is an Infamous Cold Case that to this day there is no answer to who killed this woman po actually became infatuated with this story many years before her murder because back in 1838 he read a newspaper article in the New York Sun about a woman who had gone missing in the article he read about this girl named Mary Cecilia Rogers who was born in Connecticut around 1821 whose father had died when she was very young and she lived with her widowed mother in New York City her mother opened a boarding house and then as Mary grew up she took a job as a clerk at a tobacco shop and there are like so many it became like a very big cigar shop tobacco shop but people were like the cigars are great but the beautiful Mary cigar girl is like the reason everyone

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keeps coming back she was a sensation oh okay and like a celebrity in New York so it is understandable why in 1838 her mother reports her missing and the New York son picks up this article and she's like front news right and it would be hard to come up with a list of suspects if everyone is obsessed with her yes so in 18 38 Phoebe Mary's mother finds a suicide note written by Mary stating that she had and this is in quotes a fixed and unalterable determination to destroy herself so she reports her daughter missing and believes that she is going to die and it's reported by the news Mary was missing everyone was fearing the worst but guess what the next day po picks up the newspaper and reads an article it was all a hoax it it was a big hoax all to Garner attention for the cigar shop she was working at it was a publicity

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stunt stop that's so [ __ ] up but then the story becomes even more mysterious when in July of 1841 and during this time so when he reads this article PO is now living with his wife his mother-in-law in Philadelphia and reads an article that once again Mary Cecilia Rogers the beautiful cigar girl is once again miss missing and he's like is this another hoax but then July 28th of 1841 two New Yorkers are walking in Hoboken and spot a body wash up along the Hudson River it was the body of Mary Cecilia Rogers she was murdered and when the autopsy was reported she had been sexually abused and strangled to death there was so much violence there was this like lace wire around her neck and the report from the coroner said that at least like

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multiple asence had attacked her that's so sad it makes me wonder if that original publicity stunt that original article is what inspired this crime and then if it were reported on what are the chances anyone's actually going to take it seriously or they're going to think it's another hoax it was kind of like the perfect opportunity yes which is horrible to say because someone was brutally attacked and lost their life because of it but I do see where other people would find the opportunity and that horror yes I mean it's still unsolved to this day and we could truly probably do like there's probably many True Crime podcasts out there that have done the story of Mary Cecilia Rogers it's a pretty Infamous case it kind of changed the like police detective crime scene investigative work because this case was so grossly mishandled by

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investigators there's a lot of reports that like the coroner reports were wrong it's so complicated I don't want to get too much into it because I I'm not going to be able to articulate it correctly but basically it was very mishandled it is still to this day unsolved but Edgar Allen Poe who's so fascinated by the story and who believes that he could solve any mystery he believed he could solve the case so he writes this story and it turns into a great murder mystery detective novel but unfortunately the way that he was writing it the editor of the magazine he was working for at the time was like let's release it in series so like a part one part two part three and apparently whoever edited it like just did a terrible job of keeping he they like part one was ended in the middle of a sentence part two was like ended in the middle of a thought like whoever edited it did not edit it properly and also in the beginning po like writes that this is based off of the true murder mystery of Mary Cecilia Rogers

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and that by the end of this series the murderer will be revealed and this murder will be solved like he's that confident about it wow but after part two is released something wild happens one of the women who was like a crucial witness to the crime is shot by her son accidentally when he's cleaning out his gun and she is in the hospital for 10 days dying but having these wild ramblings about how she's being visited by the ghost of Mary and how she has to confess the truth she's going on and on in these like delusional half dead States saying the spirit of Mary has visited her and that she needs to tell the truth that her sons were operating an underground abortion clinic under her bar and Mary was killed by her sons during an

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abortion that was illegal andone in secret which basically everyone is like oh the case is solved and these two sons are arrested but then their lawyers are like you're basing this off of a Dying woman who has done nothing but help solve this or like try to help solve the case and if she was running this illegal abortion clinic underneath her bar like she never would have come forward because that would have put her at risk all of a stuff there's zero evidence the evidence on the body I don't know I feel like it is really suspicious that her son was cleaning out the gun and shot her and then her on the brink of death is probably trying to come clean and clear her conscious but in life and the like being really helpful and overly involved sometimes in cases like of course I'll help you maybe she was trying to misdirect not to be suspicious of her but I feel like it's it could easily be one or the other well kin this

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is why everyone when they hear this is like oh great the case is solved yeah but keep in mind Mary's body was absolutely horrifically attacked which was not evidence of an abortion she was strangled to death like this woman it was clear that she was attacked rather than going somewhere for an operation any anyway it's poor timing because part three of Po's story was supposed to reveal the Killer and he had been very very confident from the GetGo that this was the real case and that he was solving it yeah this was the big reveal this is it it's solved so basically these two men are arrested there's not enough evidence they're not held technically no one's ever been held accountable for this murder but a lot of people were like oh maybe it was an abortion and then it just like changed the whole narrative it's a very messy case but Poe

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technically didn't solve it but it's very possible he did and it's now taken to his grave because in order to continue and still release part three of his book he he scrambled he basically like in his first detective novel with dupen the detective he has this massive unveiling of the bad guy and a conf ation and that was the detective story which was the plan for this novel as well he was hoping to solve a murder mystery in real life and in his novel but because of all the stuff that was happening in the real world he basically rewrites it that the detective confronts the murderer off screen basically it's like he entrusts the readers to think that it was solved off the page and and then it's like the name of the murderer is and then there's a note from the editor that has blurred out the name of

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the Killer and the note from the editor says due to the closeness of this case in reality we have as the magazine decided to remove the name and hide it because no one has been convicted of this murder so they went back on their promise because Po's accusation could be so so close to someone who's in real life potentially a suspect but has not actually been arrested I wonder who po named so there's some theories that he named someone who actually was involved the first time that Mary went missing because apparently there's like some legend that she snuck off with some Navy officer who lived in Hoboken and anyway it's very possible that PO actually did solve the murder but the editor blurred it out or because po did not want to be ridiculed for getting it wrong when the public is thinking it's these two sons that he

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himself actually was the editor that blurred it out yeah that's possible because it's also weird for it to be someone from the first story unless they were like truly airing out real parts of Mary's life because the first story was fake it was PR so it's like was Mary sitting there with her family being like yeah talk about my dating and that one guy and we'll say this and that like maybe but it also seems part of me just assumed half of that was fictional yeah I don't know and I don't think we'll ever know and to the say that case is unsolved but perhaps the most heartbreaking and close toome tales that PO ever wrote is the mask of the Red Death po wrote it in 1842 it is a horror story about a plague known as the Red Death that sweeps the land and causes the peasantry to bleed from their pores and suffer agonizing deaths if you've watched The Fall of the

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House of Usher episode two is pretty much this entire story it is believed and also makes a lot of sense knowing Po's history that this story was pulled from his own life po himself lived through the chera epidemic of 1832 but beyond that if you remember his mother died of tuberculosis his second Mother Francis Allen died of a plague and in 1842 the same year that he writes this tale his one true love his wife Virginia began coughing up blood and was diagnosed with tuberculosis he was once again struck with tragedy and his wife Virginia succumbed to her tuberculosis and died in 1847 this is very very sad apparently at this time the family was so poor that they could not afford a blanket and they put the cat on Virginia to keep her warm Virginia died of tuberculosis while hugging the cat for warmth oh my

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God this is so sad after the death of the love of his life po fell into a even deeper depression took to drinking even more heavily and it was not too long after this that Edgar Ellen Poe became plagued by messages and the forboding thoughts that he was going to die this perhaps is the greatest mystery of Edgar aleno his death which we will discuss in part two as we await part two which I'm going to cover the mystery of Edgar Allen Po's death and then the hauntings of the ghost of a man so haunted I'm going to leave you all with the cipher can you solve this cryptogram created by the infamous man himself the thing is you can solve it because the answer is online but but then that's not solving it that's cheating yes that's just looking at the answer can we solve it

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look at what it looks like it is okay absolutely is this gonna look like webdings or something yes gibberish we'll have the image here in the video if you're watching on YouTube and we'll post it on socials oh my God so basically it's symbols and then underneath each symbol is a letter and like all these words and you basically have to figure out I mean it's a cipher so like every letter actually correlate and every symbol actually correlates with a real letter there ain't no way I would have gotten this in a 100 years and a thousand years right nope no way I mean it took wow a computer to solve it yeah that's uh interesting po there's also another one well I'll give two because there's there's two of them and the second one I think is easier to solve this was a cryptogram left by po and it was solved in 1975 so it still took a really long

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time to solve but it was printed in February 26th of 1840 in an issue of Alexander's weekly messenger and po declared it was an imposition but turned out to be a veneer Cipher with the keyword well I can't say the keyword because then you'll be able to figure it out actually I don't think po cre this one but he solved this one but anyway we'll put this one so you can look at it too okay great yeah o how interesting I'm excited for next week too because I feel like I do know some of the things about pose death and it is so weird yeah and fascinating but learning about his life I don't know how I feel about him I feel poorly about the way that he felt about his own life and the things that he experienced and all of the death and everything but I also feel conflicted because he was such an [ __ ] yeah a lot of other people have hard lives too like you can understand

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why he was such an [ __ ] based on his trauma but that doesn't forgive it or excuse it like no yeah right we've all been through [ __ ] that doesn't give us the excuse to be rude or mean or Petty to other people no it's not like he was like that for 10 15 years and then ever evolved it sounds like it sounds like he was kind of consistently like that throughout his life yeah he lived a very sad life and he was brilliant like he was there's no denying he was so smart he was a genius he was talented and unfortunately he kind of was plagued by like a lot of dark internal demons that kept him from establishing and having maybe relationships that could have been beautiful and healing yeah and good coping mechanisms but maybe then we wouldn't have the works that we do now hey it's not us who suffered it's all

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those other people who had to encounter him back then so yeah I wonder if they think it's worth it you know I'm no psychologist but I feel like there are a lot of um professionals out there who could probably come up with a list of uh diagnosis from the DSM for Edgar Allen Poe based on this episode ah easily easily trying not to I mean I'm I never practiced in Psych I have my masters and even I was trying I was like stopping myself from giving a few diagnoses along the way cuz I'm not I'm not licensed right okay this is called I have an email from a listener first I should say that this is called Watering Hole from another reality hello ladies my cousin told me an amazing story that I could not wait to share with you both her and her husband went to the Edgar Allan po festival near Philly a couple years ago while there they stumbled upon a cute little Tavern and decided to stop in for a drink as they sat at the bar she

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noticed an old dusty bottle on the bottom shelf facing backwards she said she knew instantly by the look of the bottle that it was shinen Hager a German gin that her grandparents used to drink way back when so she asked she asked the bartender if she could see the bottle and sure enough it was she was so excited that she ordered two shots for her and her husband the bartender didn't know what this was or how much to charge so he called over the owner and the owner didn't know what to charge and my cousin said $1 and the owner said okay sure good enough and then other people sitting at the bar asked what it was and so she ordered a shot for everyone sitting at the bar they left the tavern having this wonderful experience that reminded her of our grandparents and thinking that they had just found a new great place to visit when they were in town 3 weeks later they found themselves back in the area and they went to go stop at the same Tavern so when they got there it

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was gone and not just the building was closed or demolished the space The Tavern had previously stood 3 weeks earlier was nothing but a patch of overgrown grass stop no Foundation no dirt Mounds just grass like nothing had ever been there or not been there for years she truly believes that they had stopped into some sort of alternate reality or time lapse of some sort where the tavern actually did exist but listening to her tell this story gave me chills of excitement keep up the great work have fun celebrating the best month of the year which was October and this is from Kira what the heck that is so cool I know and I like it was when they were in town for the edar Allen Poe Festival like as if something spooky like it's the perfect place for something like that to happen it seems like a PO novel well he also lived in Philadelphia for a really long time so I like to think that like he used to visit this I mean he

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drank a lot so it's very possible he drank there and then it does sound like a PO story like it does where your reality has changed maybe this is him still [ __ ] with people from the afterlife though well his ghost has been seen quite a lot and we will get into that into part too but oh that's so cool how cool to like I know travel through time it makes me wonder how many other people were either in this alternate universe or also traveling through time like were they all together experiencing this and a couple other people down the road would be like wait what happened to that Tavern and also have the same sort of story or were these two people the only ones who were out of place that shouldn't have been there it's confusing cuz even the bartender was like what what is this drink like it was almost like they knew that they were supposed to be there the tavern was there but the drink was out of place but the like it was all everyone wasn't perfectly

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settled on anything right like what part of it was real is any part of it real and like who were these other people because they do seem like they were people of our day and age but yeah were they all like a hallucination were they all part of the ACT po this is the mystery po acting out creating versions of every single person in his stories to just like exist at this one Pub maybe and he just chooses people every year during his Festival to mess with I don't know maybe that email was from 2018 so that's such a good one yeah I now want to go explore Philadelphia and find this hidden bar like what if they were the chosen ones they found the bar because they were meant to experience something there like it's it's almost like the room of requirement where the bar appears to people when they need something specific yeah well and also the fact that the bottle that

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their grandparents used to or her grandparents used to drink was basically like the star of the show that night it's also like was this somehow a message from the grandparents gosh I don't know me neither I love this though I love a time slip that doesn't feel it doesn't feel like it is one when happening like it's not scary until after the fact when you are super confused and you're like wait what happened right cuz we never would have gotten this email had they not gone back it could have just been this really cool story right that they thought always existed but it literally Weeks Later was gone just grassp 3 weeks later no evidence of a building nothing no Foundation I bet this happens way more than we think but because people don't go back looking for that place they never know they never know it's a simulation you guys which also so I pulled this story not only because it was the Edgar Allen Poe Festival but the Fall of the House of Usher have you

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finished it Sabrina okay there's a space in question that is a bar Tavern establishment type thing that throughout the season you get basically like a a through line of like it was this a real place or was this not it's from the like past timeline right with the siblings the Usher siblings brother and sister yeah yeah yes so it it was just like that I read very briefly and I again like there's so much about po that this could everyone just go listen to the book that I read or read it themselves but the Fall of the House of Usher apparently was based on twins whose names last name was Usher who I think their like parents died or something like that and they descended into madness and so like Po basically Bally stole their last name and use that as the conceit of his story dang dang i' grow and po baby the end part two

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nothing more seasonal than than dark stories around the holidays yeah and I hope people learn stuff about po because he's an interesting human I feel like most people know his stories but don't know about him and who he was yeah totally well we'll gather back next week to learn more about Po and some of the hauntings but until then if you guys have stories of your own or if you collect some over the holidays from other people please email them to us at two girls1 go podcast gmail.com you can also support us in a variety of ways you can rate and review on iTunes you can tell other people if everyone this holiday season goes and tells one or two people about our podcast and is like you have to listen to this it'll be extremely effective and you will also be promoted in our pyramid scheme triangle join our patreon to get our holiday card and to get episodes one week early and bonus content next year we love you all thank you so much to our editor and

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producer Jamie and our entire team for helping make this show possible and our business run smoothie we love you all thank you so much for listening and we will see you see you on the other side side very f