Thursday, January 19, 2017

Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe...

...I hope that there is indeed an afterlife in which you have found sweet bliss.


My favorites of all of Poe's works are his three mysteries, they are in my estimation much better detective stories than any ever written by even Arthur Conan Doyle and written well before those of Doyle. They were: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter. Poe is known as the Father of the detective story (source). If you like detective stories and mysteries and have never read the three by Poe - do yourself a favor and read them. They are truly the basis for all of the detective stories that followed.

Of course, Poe was also author of macabre tales and horror stories, a novel and most certainly of ,scores of excellent poems. Of all of his poems though, one of his briefest is my favorite; it is the last version of a poem that had a couple or few preceding versions:

T:             
 
I heed not that my earthly lot
Hath — little of Earth in it —
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute: —
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer by.

If I could choose what was to be on my tombstone, it would be this poem, there for anyone to see and read who stopped by to visit for a moment at my gravesite.

Poe has been my favorite American author since I was in grammar school. He is tied with, or has a slight edge over, J.R.R. Tolkien and Douglas Adams as my favorite writers in the world.

A hat tip to Eric SWG for the reminder that today was Poe's birthday.

All the best,
Glenn B
 
 

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