October 2014 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Poe in Boston (and NY)

Have you noticed the uptick in Edgar Allan Poe-related news? The classic American author is getting more attention than the typical October coverage of Gothic literature, due to a major exhibit, a statue reveal, and several lectures and related events.

1014412_10154679244855484_6285643468222690249_n.jpgFB&C subscribers will note that Nick Basbanes' column in the newly published fall issue focuses on the Boston Literary Cultural District, launched in earnest last week and topped off yesterday with an unveiling of sculptor Stefanie Rocknak's bronze statue of Poe on the corner of Boylston and Charles streets. Basbanes attended the event alongside 500 other Poe fans, as well as the former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky and philanthropist and rare book collector Susan Jaffe Tane. Basbanes snapped a picture of Poe Returning to Boston (above) and of Pinsky and Tane (below).

Pinsky-Tane.jpgWe were also treated last week to an exclusive interview with Tane, the leading collector of Poe books and manuscripts, whose exhibit, Evermore: The Persistence of Poe, is currently on view at the Grolier Club in Manhattan. Tane was interviewed by A.N. Devers, who held a talk last week about Poe's afterlife at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn. Tomorrow, she will moderate a Poe-themed discussion at Brooklyn's Community Bookstore, and on the 16th, she will lead a reading group around Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym at the Center for Fiction in Manhattan.

Craving more Poe? Check out Atlas Obscura's "The Parlor Poet vs. The Raven in a Battle of Literary Statues."

Images Credit: Nicholas A. Basbanes. Used by permission.