The Home of Edgar Allan Poe

The Home of Edgar Allan Poe

Several years back I visited Edgar Allan Poe’s house in Philadelphia. I was given a group guided tour, which didn’t take long because the house, like most from that antebellum era, was so small. It was basically four rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, each quite tiny. And a basement. And in this cramped space Poe lived with his young wife and her mother. No doubt the mother had one of the two upstairs bedrooms to herself. Mr. & Mrs. shared the other.

Which means Poe wrote his stories and essays, and performed the busy-work of editing a literary journal, in one of the two Lilliputian rooms on the ground floor.

Perhaps he stored clothes and other personal possessions in the basement. And perhaps, when he was down there, ideas came to him. My guide said that Poe wrote “The Black Cat” while living in the house. I could imagine a black cat entombed behind the wall of that low-ceilinged basement. I could even imagine someone searching that dank and dark pit for a reputed cask of amontillado.

That’s the wonder of the imagination. Unlike physical space, it need not be cramped and confined. It can soar beyond space and time, from the primeval past to the far future and down to black catacombs where dark creatures howl.