Poe's birthday launches museum's 90th year

Something strange must have tapped, tapped, tapped on CBS-TV’s door last year. Viewers who woke up on Sept. 25 to anchor Charles Osgood on the network’s “Sunday Morning” heard the startlingly inaccurate news of the closing of Richmond’s Edgar Allan Poe Museum. Concerned residents, as well as literary and Poe fans nationwide, inundated the museum at 1914 E. Main St. with phone calls and e-mails.

Museum staff went on the offensive: They assured everyone that – while they appreciated the concern – the museum was doing just fine, thank you (though Baltimore’s Poe House Museum, which the TV news team probably confused with Richmond’s Poe Museum, has been in dire need of assistance and could have been helped by an accurate, national news story).

The Richmond museum website, www.poemuseum.org, proclaimed on Sept. 27, 2011, that the museum was not only not closing but promoting its 2012 year-long exhibit – and events – schedule for the museum’s 90th anniversary.

If you’ve never been to the Poe Museum or haven’t visited in awhile, the poet’s 203rd birthday celebration, to be held from 10 a.m. to midnight on Saturday, Jan. 14, is the perfect time.

The museum opens at 10, with special events beginning at noon.

While Poe’s birthday is Jan. 19, the same date as Robert E. Lee, another historical figure important to Richmond’s history, the 19th inconveniently falls on a Thursday – not a good day or night for a bash.

Be sure to check out Saturday’s schedule of events in advance: a Poe variety show, birthday cake, tours, musicians and dancers, as well as trolley rides by the new Richmond Trolley Company, because, for the $5 admission fee, you can come and go all day as often as you like.

The day ends with a champagne toast to Poe as Saturday draws to a close at midnight. The museum reopens at 11 a.m. Sunday for regular, self-guided tours.

New exhibits

Saturday noon brings the opening of the exhibit “Stormier, Wilder and More Weird: James Carling and ‘The Raven’:” chilling illustrations by Carling, in ink and gauche, which haven’t seen the light of day in 40 years.

Celebrated as the “Fastest Drawer in the World” and the “Lightning Caricaturist” during his lifetime, Carling sought to outdo the world’s most popular illustrator, French artist Gustave Dore, by illustrating Poe’s poem better than Dore had done in his acclaimed 1882 edition of the poem.

Carling’s illustrations have been in storage and will return to storage after this exhibition ends on May 1, to prevent further deterioration.

The Poe Museum – then known as the Poe Shrine – purchased the drawings in 1936 from Carling’s niece Stella and displayed them in the Raven Room for more than three decades.

Carling, who began as a pavement artist with chalks at the age of 5 on the streets of Liverpool and performed across the United States, died at the age of 29 in 1887 and was buried in a pauper’s grave. Liverpool annually mounts the James Carling International Pavement Art competition in his memory.

While you’re at the museum, don’t miss the exhibit that opened on Dec. 2, 2011, on the “Untold Story of Poe’s Mother.”

Eliza Poe, by all accounts a gifted actress and singer who performed throughout the United States, died at the age of 24, when her son was only 2 years old. The exhibit of items associated with her life pays tribute to a woman who blazed the trail for other women at a time when acting was considered an immoral, unsuitable profession for women.

Perhaps the most intriguing special birthday event on Saturday will be what’s billed as a “Theatrical Victorian Séance” at 8 and 9 p.m.

According to Keith Kaufelt at Eerie Nights Ghost Tours, he will be trying to use the techniques used by Victorian-era mediums: 19th century tricks with modern-day special effects. He emphasizes this will be a theatrical séance rather than an attempt to communicate with the dead.

Remainder of anniversary year 2012

Keep an eye on the Poe Museum’s website for events through December celebrating 1922 as the year that a small group of prominent Richmonders opened an exhibition space, a memorial garden and a brick pergola to preserve the memory of the poet who spent a third of his life in Richmond.

Being widely known for its evening unhappy hours marking special events, the museum will celebrate its opening 90 years ago on Thursday, April 26, with an Unhappy Hour in a 1920s garden-party setting.

April 26 also will mark the opening of the exhibit, “In Poe’s Hand: Letters and Manuscripts,” up until July 11.

Other unhappy hours and their themes are May 24 (“The Enchanted Garden”), June 28 (“The Gold Bug”), July 26 (“The Oval Portrait”) Aug. 23 (“The Premature Burial”), Sept. 27 (“The Masque of the Red Death”) and Oct. 25 (“The Black Cat”). July 26 also will see the opening of “New Acquisitions of Poe Portraiture” (through Sept. 30) on the second floor of the exhibit building

In addition to the unhappy hours and exhibitions, Poe’s Death Day Celebration is Oct. 7; Poe’s Pumpkin Patch, Oct. 28; and the Poe Illumination, Dec. 7 -– a full year of Poe.

The impressive model of Poe’s Richmond, sculpted by local teacher Edith Ragland in 1924-27 on display at the museum, alone justify making a trip to East Main Street.

While no record exists of the number of years she and sculptor Edward Valentine spent researching old insurance records, elevation charts, drawings and photographs before construction even began, Ragland spent three years building the model in the Old Stone House comprising the museum.

Visitors interested in guided tours should call ahead to make advance arrangements.

For more information, visit www.poemuseum.org, call 648-5523, or e-mail info@poemuseum.org.

Martha Steger is a Midlothian-based Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel Writers.