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Edgar Allan Poe finally getting a proper funeral

Edgar Allan Poe finally getting a proper funeral
By Alex Eliseev
07 Oct 2009
0

On the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, he's about to get the kind of funeral a writer of his stature should have received. In 1849 the impoverished writer was found, delirious and in distress outside a Baltimore tavern. He died four days later in hospital. Only a handful of people attended the hastily organised funeral of one of the 19th century's greatest writers. Then, to add insult to injury, his tombstone was destroyed before it could even be installed, and to top it all, one of Poe’s bitterest literary enemies published a critical obituary that damaged Poe's reputation for decades. But on Sunday Poe will get a funeral in two church services as actors portray famous writers who will read eulogies crafted from writings about Poe. In typical American fashion, tickets are already sold out and fans are coming from as far away as Vietnam.

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