Happy Birthday Edgar!

Today’s a day that Edgar Allan Poe fans are sure to remember (some may even remember it more than a certain ‘little’ historical event taking place in Washington DC )), because today marks the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth.

A number of celebratory events have taken place already. In Poe’s birthplace Boston, Boston College hosted two consecutive nights of events. The first, on Thursday (15th January) was an author event featuring Matthew Pearl and Scott Peeples, and the following day (Friday 16th) the college played host to a showing of the new Poe film The Last Days of The Raven, followed by a Q&A session with the film’s director, Brent Fidler (yes, that’s the same movie that’s free to watch online today, but only today).

Under the official event banner of Nevermore 2009, Baltimore started their celebrations early too with a weekend packed full of events. Baltimore’s official bicentennial blog has a complete rundown on the event, which ran on the 17th & 18th, including loads of pictures, so rather than ‘listen’ to me babble on I’ll just direct you straight to that. It looked like it was a LOT of fun!

If you visited the Baltimore blog linked above then the eagle-eyed among you would have noticed a snapshot of the unveiling of a stamp during the celebrations in Baltimore, and this marks the US Postal Services getting involved in the bicentennial celebrations too, with the release of an anniversary stamp depicting a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe by Michael J. Deas. In the USPS’s own words:

“The stamp portrait of Edgar Allan Poe is by award-winning artist Michael J. Deas, whose research over the years has made him well acquainted with Poe’s appearance. In 1989, Deas published The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe, a comprehensive collection of images featuring authentic likenesses as well as derivative portraits.”

So what future events are lined up in celebration of the Poe bicentennial? Well as I post this a 24-hour ‘birthday bash’ is under way at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, which is packed with various events, including a special 2-hour Segway tour of Richmond Poe sites, which I’m sure Edgar would approve of, if only for its ‘fantastical’ appeal ). Throughout the year the Poe Museum at Richmond is also playing host to a series of ‘Unhappy Hours’ in their courtyard garden. Full details on their website and on the official poster (PDF format).

Not to be outdone Baltimore’s Nevermore 2009 has a whole host of events planned for the bicentennial year. Full details can be found on the event page at the Nevermore 2009 site, but highlights include a Poe-themed dinner on the 25th January, and a repeat ‘birthday celebration’ weekend on the 31st January and 1st of February. Later in the year a number of events are taking place around the Westminster Graveyard and the Baltimore Book Festival in late September (25th-27th) is sure to have plenty of Poe-themed goodness attached to it.

So it looks set to be a great event-filled year in celebration of Poe’s bicentennial anniversary, and I’m sure there are many more events going to be tagged on as the year progresses. Be sure to keep a close eye out on the official websites linked throughout this post for updated information (and keep a closer eye on Garth’s excellent EAP 200 Project website which always seems to have all of the latest and greatest news on the Poe Bicentennial).

In closing I suppose I should also briefly mention my own ongoing tribute to Poe’s bicentennial celebrations – my iPoe Reading Challenge, in which I’m reading all of Edgar Allan Poe’s published stories. It’s probably a reading challenge more suited to people who haven’t read much Poe stories but really want to. I invite anyone to virtually join me in this challenge, and I point you to the challenge page for all of the details.

For now though all that remains to be done is to wish Edgar Allan Poe a very happy posthumous birthday! If he were here I know he’d love it!