I don't think I can even bring myself to read this thing when it comes out. I just can't bear to plow through another idiot book that utterly trashes the poor man, especially with the knowledge that readers who don't know any better will assume it's based on some kind of fact. I do not have the stomach for it anymore. And this myth about the Poe/Frances Osgood "love affair" is like something out of a horror movie: No matter how many times you think you've killed the beast, it keeps coming back to life.
Lynn Cullen, you've put me in a very bad mood today.
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I feel the same about the movie "The Raven" starring John Cusack. When I read that Cusack, a good actor, would be portraying Poe, I looked forward to the movie. Then I learned that it was about Poe - as a detective tracking a serial killer! Next he can be portrayed as an international spy on the trail of anarchists who have created a powerful bomb using split atoms... Whatever happened to biographies? The old rumour of Sylvester Stallone playing Poe starts to look better and better...
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when Michael Jackson wanted to do a Poe movie?
DeleteGood times.
The mind boggles. And the soul trembles...
ReplyDeleteI am sick of authors defaming the poor man. He had enough to contend with during his lifetime. Poe does not need his already fragile reputation damaged anymore. He was not perfect, but he was not a cheater or a complete drunk!
ReplyDeleteThen I'll assume you've seen this: http://page69test.blogspot.com/2013/10/mrs-poe.html
ReplyDelete"True to life" ?
Oh, bloody freaking hell.
DeleteI just finished this book and came to your blog hoping to find a take-down of it. For that reason I hope you'll give it a go, but for your own sanity...don't. It's terrible. The person who's defamed is poor old Mrs. Clemm. Poe comes across more like the hero in a teen romance than a real person.
ReplyDeleteI made the mistake of reading it a short time ago. It was even worse than I feared.
DeleteWhy is it that virtually everyone who writes novels about Poe has it in for the poor guy?
Agreed! It's a disgrace. I could barely bring myself to finish this one. And it's not just Poe who is completely misrepresented but his wife and mother-in-law as well. Why can't people just leave them alone?
ReplyDeleteThey were a loving, close-knit family. There was no secret agenda. And poor Virginia was not a conniving, immature little invalid. Yes she was ill, but by all accounts she remained a charming and pleasant woman right to the very end.
And I absolutely refuse to believe that this "affair" between Poe and Fanny took place. It is inconsistent with his relationship with his wife and there just isn't enough evidence to prove it; and there was definitely no secret love child. The notion is utterly ridiculous and degrading.
Are you equally enraged by the Oxfordian claptrap they slanders Shakespeare?
ReplyDeleteJust noticed your query. Our deceased friend Wacko (Mr. Jackson) gave the world notice of his intending movie in the Autumn of 1999, with the first takes to start in Quebec, by the end of 2000. Title was to be The Nightmare of Edgar Allan Poe, featuring the wriggling nightmare himself in the main part. Funding would be European and Canadian, with a few bucks thrown in by Mr. Jackson himself. I refer you to back nos. of the Hollywood Reporter.
ReplyDeleteTruly,
From Holland.
I have a book and movie deal with the first true portrayal of Poe so I am prepared for the scathing reviews from Undine and the fans of this blog of which I am one.
ReplyDeleteHere's an excerpt from the author of Mrs. Poe on why she decided to craft this tale. I hope you're sitting down. “Two years after Virginia died, on October 7, 1849, Edgar Poe followed her to the grave at the age of forty, his original mind quieted forever. Seven months after Poe’s passing, Frances Osgood died, on May 12, 1850, of tuberculosis. She was thirty-eight years old. Upon her death, her husband, Samuel, ever the entrepreneur, collected her poems, including those to Edgar Poe, into a volume. It sold well. Samuel himself long outlived everyone in his family, finally joining them on the other side in 1885.
ReplyDeleteFrances’s child Fanny Fay died at sixteen months of age on October 15, 1847, cause unknown. Tellingly, in “Ulalume,” written in December 1847, the narrator and his soulmate mourn the death of their beloved Ulalume in the month of October, in his “most immemorial year.” I theorize that Poe was referring to 1847, when he lost both Virginia and Fanny Fay, and had his final parting with Frances. He was to live for only two years after that and Frances just a little longer. Could it be possible that their rift, and then the death of their child, had shattered their health?”
Excerpt From: Lynn Cullen. “Mrs. Poe.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/eGnxI.l
I believe her final collection of poems was published before her death, and they did not sell particularly well. (And "ever the entrepreneur?!" Eh, what?)
DeleteAnd, oh, God, the old "Ulalume-is-about-Fanny-Fay" drivel. Yes, but of course Ms. Cullen would latch on to that one.
By the way, have you seen that article she published on some webzine called "My Sexy Poe?"
DeleteShe has a gift for being hilarious and nauseating at the same time.
Out of sheer curiosity (and a need to read some mindless fiction for a change) I started this book today. Oooo-boy! I'm only a chapter in and it's already surprisingly dull. Most of the chapter involved Mrs. Osgood walking up and down various New York streets... You know; the exact type of description you're told not to do in Fiction 101...
ReplyDeleteHistorical novels that don't get the "history" part right are inevitably badly written, as well. I don't believe I've ever seen an exception to that rule.
DeleteAbsolutely! I'm now five chapters in and have a list of historical WTF?'s floating about in my head. Distracting, at best...
DeleteMs. Cullen has done as much damage to Eddy's reputation as Rufus Griswold did!
ReplyDelete