Midnight dreary

the long version

With the publication of three short tales in the 1840s, Poe invented the detective story. Then his own sudden and bizarre death created a real-life mystery, still unsolved after 150 years, as tantalizing as any of his famous stories. While traveling alone from Richmond, Virginia, to New York City, Poe disappeared for nearly a week. When seen again he was terribly drunk and nearly dead in Baltimore. In the hospital, he couldn't tell where he'd been all that time or who he'd been with. Four days later, after periods of raving delirium, he died. The immediate cause of death given was "congestion of the brain," or "inflammation of the brain," catch-all medical phrases of the day. Midnight Dreary examines the last days of one of America's most admired authors, definitively untangling more than a century of speculation. On its 150th anniversary the greatest Poe mystery of all is finally put to rest.