Edgar Allan Poe -The forever Mystery

  born in Boston, Massachusetts January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849an American author, poet, editor and literary criticBest known for his tales of mystery and the macabre
Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genreHe is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. Early lifeHis parents were David and Elizabeth Poe.Elizabeth Arnold came to U.S. from England in 1796 and married David Poe after her first husband died in 1805. They had three children. Henery, Edgar and Rosalie.Elizabeth Poe died in 1811, when Edgar was 2 years old.She had separated from her husband and had taken her three kids with her.Henry went to live with his grand parents while Edgar was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan , and Rosalie was taken in by another family. John Allan was a successful merchant, so Edgar grew up in good surroundings and went to good schools CareerHis publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems After his early attempts at poetry, Poe had turned his attention to prose. He placed a few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama politian
 The story brought him to the attention of John P. Kennedy ,  a Baltimorean of considerable means. He helped Poe place some of his stories, and introduced him to Thomas W. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond .
 Poe became assistant editor of the periodical in August 1835 but was discharged within a few weeks for having been caught drunk by his boss. Returning to Baltimore, Poe secretly married Virginia, his cousin, on September 22, 1835. He was 26 and she was 13, though she is listed on the marriage certificate as being 21. Reinstated by White after promising good behavior, Poe went back to Richmond with Virginia and her mother. He remained at the Messenger until January 1837. During this period, Poe claimed that its circulation increased from 700 to 3,500. He published several poems, book reviews, critiques, and stories in the paper. On May 16, 1836, he had a second wedding ceremony in Richmond with Virginia Clemm, this time in public.One evening in January 1842, Virginia showed the first signs of consumption, now known as Tuberculosis, while singing and playing the piano. Poe described it as breaking a blood vessel in her throat. She only partially recovered. Poe began to drink more heavily under the stress of Virginia's illness. He left Graham's and attempted to find a new position, for a time angling for a government post. He returned to New York, where he worked briefly at The Evening Mirror before becoming editor of The Broadway Journal  and, later, sole owner.The Broadway Journal failed in 1846. 

 Poe moved to a cottage in the Fordham  section of The Bronx, New York.
That home, known today as the "Poe Cottage. Virginia died there on January 30, 1847. Biographers and critics often suggest that Poe's frequent theme of the "death of a beautiful woman" stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his life, including his wife 

List of works

Short Stories

• " Manuscript found in a bottle "1833( adventure at sea)
• "Berenice" 1835( horror story about teeth)

 "Liegeia"1838 (a haunting supernatural tale

• "silence-a fable" 1838(a dream)
• "the fall of the house of Usher"1839(an old house and its secrets)
• "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"1841 (a detective story)
• "William Wilson"1842(identical twins or something else?)
• "the Gold Bug"1843(a search for pirate treasure)
• "The angel of the old odd"1844(comedy about being drunk)
• " The black cat" 1845(horror story about a cat)
• "Adescent into the Maelstrom"1845(man vs.nature,adventure story)
• "The Facts in the cade of M. Valdemar"1845(talking with a dead man)
• "Hop Frog" 1845 (a midget seeks revenge)
•  "The Purloined Letter"1845(a detective story)
•  the man of the crowd1845( how to follow someone
• "The Cask of Amontillado"1846(a story about revenge)
• "Mesmeric revelation"1849 (conversation with a hypnotized dying man)
• "Eleonora 1850 (a love story)
• "The Imp of the Perverse"1850(procrastination and confession)
• "Never bet the devil your head"1850(a comedy with a moral)
• "The Oval Portrait"1850(a tragic love story)
•  "The Pit and the Pendulum"1850(a torture chamber)
• "The Premature Burial"1850(about being buried alive)
•  "The tell Tale Heart"1850( a murder's guilt)
• "Some words with a mummy"1850(a mummy speaks)
• "The spectacles 1850(a  comedy about love at first sight)
• "The System of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether"1856inside an insane asylum
• The Mask of the Red Death" 
•     "Morella

    Poetry:·

        "Al Araaf"
·        "Annabel Lee"1849
·        "The bells"1849
·        "The City in the Sea"1831
·        "The Conqueror Worm"1843
·        "A Dream within a Dream"1850
·        "Eldorado"1849
·        "Eulalie"
·        The Haunted Palace"1839
·        "To Helen"
·        "Lenore"
·        "The Raven"1845
·        "Tamerlane"
·        "Ulalume"

the sleeper1831

to the river1829

spirits of the deas 1829

A valentine 1850 

the valley of unrest1845

Alone1875

in this link you will find a Poem never published in his life time" Alone"

http://blueskiesdream.blogspot.com/2012/09/alone-by-edgar-allan-poe.html
Other works:·     

   "Politian" (Poe's only play 1835)
·        "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Of Nantucket" ( Poe's only complete novel 1838)
·        "The Balloon Hoax"( A journalistic Hoax printed as a true story 1844)
·        "The Philosophy of Composition"(Essay1846)
·        "Eureka: Aprose Poem "(Essay1846)
·        "The Poetic Principle"(Essay 1848)
·        "The Light House"(Poe's last incomplete work)
 "The island of the fay" 1850( a poetic discussion)

Death 

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. 

He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common Euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. 

The actual cause of death remains a mystery. Speculation has included Delirium Tremens, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, syphilis, Meningeal Inflammation, Cholera, and Rabies !!!
 One theory, dating from 1872, indicates that cooping – in which unwilling citizens who were forced to vote for a particular candidate were occasionally killed – was the cause of Poe's death

quotes-from-edgar-allan-poe

Harry Price

who doesn't like reading about ghosts ? or watch a movie about ghosts?

Harry Price took us far than just read and made many researches and experiments and even wrote many books about paranormal events, let's know more about him 

Published works

• Revelations of a Spirit Medium, with Eric J. Dingwall, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd, London, hardback, 1922.

• Cold Light on Spiritualistic "Phenomena" - An Experiment with the Crewe Circle, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd, 1922.

• Stella C. An Account of Some Original Experiments in Psychical Research, Hurst & Blackett Ltd., hardback, 1925.

• Rudi Schneider: A Scientific Examination of his Mediumship, Methuen & Co. Ltd., hardback, 1930.

• Leaves from a Psychist’s Case Book, Victor Gollancz Ltd., hardback, 1933.

• Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, Putnam & Co. Ltd., London, hardback, 1936.

• The Haunting of Cashen's Gap: A Modern "Miracle" Investigated - with R.S. Lambert, Methuen & Co. Ltd., hardback, 1936.

• Fifty Years of Psychical Research: A Critical Survey Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd., hardback, 1939.

• The Most Haunted House in England: Ten Years' Investigation of Borley Rectory, Longmans, Green & Co., hardback, 1940.

• Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research, Collins, London, hardback, 1942.

• Poltergeist Over England: Three Centuries of Mischievous Ghosts, Country Life Ltd., hardback, 1945.

• The End of Borley Rectory, Harrap & Co. Ltd., hardback, 1946.

Death and legacy

Harry Price is one of the most controversial and famous psychic researchers and authors in the history of spiritualist studies. He is particularly famous for being maligned by many of his peers but simultaneously becoming extremely popular with the public due to his fascinating studies on haunted houses, psychic activity, mediumship and other supernormal phenomena.

The life of Harry Price began in 1881 in London. His first experiences of psychic activity occurred when he was only 15. He and a friend discovered an old manor house which was believed to be haunted and with permission they stayed the night in this house to see what they might experience. Harry Price claimed in his autobiography that on that night there were a number of noises which indicated the presence of a ghost and when Harry tried to take a photo he overloaded his camera with flash powder and the photo never came out. Regardless of this failure it was this experience which helped set Harry Price on a path which would dictate his whole life.

With his level of interest in these fields combined to his awareness of magic, Price was an adept magician as well, he was able to uncover a number of fraudulent claims to supernormal activity during his lifetime because he was aware of how to create these false claims. Harry Price wrote several books during his life and these still have a huge following in the world of psychical study and beyond.

In his autobiography, Search for Truth, Price said the “Great Sequah” in Shrewsbury was "entirely responsible for shaping much of my life’s work"^] and led to him acquiring the first volume of what would become the Harry Price Library, Price later became an expert amateur conjurer, joined the Magic Circle in 1922 and maintained a lifelong interest in stage magic and conjuring. His expertise in sleight-of-hand and magic tricks stood him in good stead for what would become his all consuming passion, the investigation ofparanormal phenomena.

During his formative years his passion for magic also began to take root and he became obsessed by magicians, illusionists, hypnotists and fortune tellers and he also became a skilled magician as well. However it wasn't until later in his career that his magic skill was recognized and he became a member of the Magic Circle as well as a member of the Society of American Magicians. Harry Price used the innumerable magic techniques he learnt and researched to then launch one of the most well known facets of his career; uncovering fraud.

With his vast knowledge he became an expert at revealing false claims to the supernormal and these claims were particularly frequent at the turn of the 19 th century. After finishing school Harry Price continued his research into psychic activity but he could not commit to it as a full time job until he married his wife, Constance Mary Knight, in 1908. By 1920 he joined the Society for Psychical Research and although he was already known as one the leaders in his field it was from this point on when his reputation began to spread.

One of the first investigations which shot Harry Price to fame was his uncovering of the spirit photographer William Hope. Hope was making a living by taking photographs of people which would feature the spirit of a dead relative. Hope's photos were of course faked and in 1922 Harry Price went to visit Hope, on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, in order to investigate what was actually going on. Inevitably Price uncovered William Hope as a fraud and he succeeded in doing so by secretly switching Hope's photographic plates with some of his own which revealed that all along Hope had been using pre-prepared plates with images of spirits on them. After publishing his findings Harry Price's reputation grew whilst William Hope's crashed.

However this was not the main body of Price's work and uncovering frauds was merely part of a much broader investigation. His next major study in the world of psychical research fell upon him by chance as he met a young woman named Stella Cranshaw. After meeting Cranshaw on a train the young woman told Price that she had been experiencing some very odd supernormal activity in her life. She explained that for the past few years she had been experiencing cold chills in her house, strange rapping noises and had even seen objects flying. Harry Price was instantly fascinated and after informing Cranshaw of his credentials she agreed to be a test subject in order to help understand this psychical activity.

Price suffered a massive heart attack at his home in Pulborough, West Sussex and died almost instantly on 29 March 1948^]

His archives were deposited with the University of London between 1976 and 1978 by his widow. They include his correspondence, drafts of his publications, papers relating to libel cases, reports on his investigations, press cuttings and photographs.