Biographies of famous historical figures face the continual problem of how to separate themselves from prior published biographies. For example, how much research has been done into the life of Edgar Allan Poe? Quite a bit. So, how does a writer approach Poe as a subject for a new biography? One way is to present the most up to date information and scholarship in a format that’s new and exciting. In A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak, two competing timelines tell the story of Edgar Allan Poe’s life and the mystery of his death. Dawadziak seeks to reframe that mystery, and in doing so, he has to look at the whole of Poe’s life.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak dispels the caricature of Edgar Allan Poe to show the real person. It turns that that the real Edgar Allan Poe is way more interesting than the caricature. Dawidziak’s biography attempts to reframe the mystery surrounding Poe’s death while enlightening readers to the oddities of Poe’s life. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.
It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own?
Mystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe—and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe’s death was haunting him all his life.
In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.
Review: A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak
Dawidziak begins his biography of Edgar Allan Poe with the man’s death. This feels natural and fitting for the father of American gothic horror. Poe’s life could have been one of his own stories, and in the time unaccounted for prior to his death, the mystery of a life cut short looms. It calls to fans of Poe. What happened to him? Where was he? Dawidziak seeks to answer that unanswerable question. To do this, he consults experts on Poe’s life, literature, and criticism. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849; yet, Dawidziak pursues the story as rigorously – maybe even more so – as any investigative journalist. His passion and thoroughness would almost make it seem like he’s working an open case instead of looking at a death prior to the American Civil War.
Dawidziak structures his book with alternating chapters. One section focus on the events leading up to his disappearance, and the other provides an overall biography. I liked this structure. It kept things fresh. Rather than reading a linear biography, the reader jumps around in time. This gave it a mystery novel feel; though, I didn’t think the two timelines came together smoothly. Still, it was an excellent structuring that gave motion and a sense of urgency to the biographical events.
No one who reads this book will accuse Dawidziak of skimping on the research. His preparation to write this thing was shocking to me in its thoroughness. He read. He interviewed. He researched. I’m not sure thoroughness is the appropriate word for how prepared Dawidziak was to write this novel. I can only wonder at all the info that didn’t make it into the book. Whether it’s the greeter at the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, the docent of the Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore, quotes from writers like Stephen King, excerpt from the works of Poe’s scholars, or interviews with Poe scholars, there is no lacking in supporting information. (On a personal note, I loved seeing the addition of Matthew Pearl as resource about Poe. Pearl wrote The Poe Shadow, which is an excellent book in its own right.) Dawidziak’s own interest in Poe comes through the page in the depth and breadth of resources he includes for readers.
Poe, the Man, not the Caricature
This is the first Poe biography I read, and I was astonished to find out that the Poe I thought I knew was wrong. I pictured Poe as a broody Goth who belonged on foggy moors rather than the streets of New York. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Dawidziak paints a portrait of an active and adventurous man. For a time, Poe joined the military and was quite popular. He spent time at West Point and was quite popular. While he was born in Boston, he considered himself a Southern gentleman. He’s often associated with Baltimore, but his preferred home was Richmond, Virginia.
I knew he wrote poetry and mysteries in addition to the horror that he’s best known for, but I didn’t know he was a critic. Apparently he was a scathing one at that, whether he actually read the work being critiqued or not. Being a critic myself, of course this interested me. It seems as if criticism is where he made most of his money while alive. Poe is the first American writer to make a living writing full time, as meager as that living was. To think that criticism helped provide a living is surprising to me. I can’t help but wonder if he obsessed over the same things in his criticism that he obsessed over in his own fiction.
Tragic Character Flaws
Dawidziak points out how often Poe was his own worst enemy. Poe wrecks his own prospects in such a way that it’s like he’s a character straight out of fiction himself. He has the tragic character flaw of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He is constantly asking for money to support him, and yet in doing so he’ll often be as combative or abrasive as he is manipulative. His lifelong battle with alcohol often rears its head when things are going well for him. But whatever tragic flaws he possessed, none of them seemed to get in the way of his writing. Poe was a machine who wrote and wrote and wrote. His output and its lasting impact upon literature is astonishing when we learn he died at the age of 40. While his writing was appreciated in his lifetime, no one could have guessed its legacy. One wishes that he could have gotten a glimpse at what his work means to the world, similar to the ending of Vincent and the Doctor.
Poe's Women
Throughout his life, Poe experience loss after loss. It seems as if the loss of the women in his life hit him the hardest. His mother Elizabeth died in 1811 when Edgar was 2. Jane Stanard, mother to his friend Robert Craig and whose memory inspired To Helen, passed about a year after meeting Edgar, but in her, he had found a kindred spirit. He loved but never married Sarah Elmira Royster, and he ‘lost’ her to another man. His wife and cousin, Virginia Clem, died when she was 24. With all this loss, is it a wonder why he wrote so much of tragic women? He doesn’t write women with much agency in his stories; they seem to be the focus of tragedy. Dawidziak paints his interactions with women as tragic. The loss of his mother and the chronic illness of his caretaker, Fanny Allan, had lasting impacts. How could they not? He seemed a deeply Romantic person, whose view of love as tragic would fit right in with any of his horrors.
Dawidziak’s writing about Poe’s relationship to women is enlightening and, with regards to his cousin, creepy. Dawidziak doesn’t judge Poe for this relationship, or if he does, it doesn’t come through on the page. Nonetheless, it’s a creepy relationship in and of itself. Dawidziak is careful to point out that it isn’t understood whether it was a marriage like we think of marriages. Poe regarded Virginia as his idealized soulmate.
Conclusion
Mark Dawidziak’s A Mystery of Mysteries is the Poe biography I needed to read. It humanized this giant of American letters by giving me a portrait of who the man was rather than the caricature that exists in popular culture. Dawidziak’s structuring of the alternating timelines gives a mystery novel feel to this investigation. A Mystery of Mysteries had me glued to the page wondering if by chance Dawidziak had found the answer to Poe’s ultimate mystery. Highly recommended.
A Mystery of Mysteries by Mark Dawidziak is available from St. Martin’s Press now.
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