The death of American writer Edgar Allan Poe on October 7, 1849, remains unclear in terms of both the cause of death and the events that led to it. Poe was discovered confused and in poor condition at a tavern in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 3. He asked for help from magazine editor Joseph E. Snodgrass and was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he was treated for what seemed to be alcohol intoxication. Poe had no visitors during his hospital stay and did not explain how he had arrived in that condition before dying on October 7 at the age of 40.

Possible explanations for Poe’s death include murder, suicide, cholera, low blood sugar, rabies, syphilis, tuberculosis, influenza, a brain tumor, or being a victim of cooping, a type of election fraud common at the time. The role of alcohol in his death is debated.

Most information about Poe’s final days comes from his doctor, John Joseph Moran, though his reliability is questioned. Poe was buried at the First Presbyterian Church Burying Ground after a small funeral. In 1875, his remains were moved to a new grave with a larger monument. This monument also marks the final resting place of Poe’s wife, Virginia, and his mother-in-law, Maria.

After Poe’s death, Rufus Wilmot Griswold wrote his obituary using the name "Ludwig." Griswold later became Poe’s literary executor and wrote the first full biography of Poe, portraying him as a troubled, drunk, and drug-addicted person. Much of this image is believed to have been made up by Griswold. Although Poe’s friends disagreed with this portrayal, it had a lasting influence on how Poe was viewed.

Chronology

Between July and September 1849, Edgar Allan Poe stayed in Richmond, Virginia, to consider starting a magazine. He arrived there still recovering from a cholera illness that caused hallucinations, though he insisted he had not been drinking. Poe gave lectures and readings to earn money for his expenses. He left Richmond on September 27 for New York City, where he planned to take a job as an editor and remarry.

No records confirm Poe’s location until October 3, when he was found in a confused and disoriented state at Ryan’s Tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. A printer named Joseph W. Walker wrote to Joseph E. Snodgrass, a friend of Poe, asking for help. Walker’s letter said:

"Dear Sir—There is a gentleman, rather the worse for wear, at Ryan's 4th ward polls, who goes under the cognomen of Edgar A. Poe, and who appears in great distress, & he says he is acquainted with you, and I assure you, he is in need of immediate assistance. Yours, in haste, Jos. W. Walker"

Snodgrass later said Poe appeared "repulsive," with messy hair, a dirty and unwashed face, and tired, empty eyes. His clothing, including a stained shirt, no vest, and worn shoes, was old and did not fit well. John Joseph Moran, Poe’s doctor, described Poe wearing an old, faded coat, similar pants, worn shoes, and an old straw hat. Poe was too confused to explain how he arrived in this condition, and it is believed he was not wearing his own clothes, as he usually dressed neatly.

Moran cared for Poe at Washington College Hospital, where he was kept in a room with barred windows, reserved for people who were drunk. Poe reportedly called out the name "Reynolds" repeatedly before his death, but no one has identified who he meant. Possible explanations include a newspaper editor named Jeremiah N. Reynolds, a judge named Henry R. Reynolds, or a relative named Henry Herring.

Moran said Poe mentioned a wife in Richmond. He may have believed his wife, Virginia, was still alive or referred to Sarah Elmira Royster, to whom he had recently proposed. Poe also did not know where his belongings had been left behind in Richmond. Moran reported Poe’s final words were, "Lord, help my poor soul," before he died on October 7, 1849.

Because no visitors were allowed, Moran was likely the only person who saw Poe in his final days. However, his accounts have been questioned. Moran claimed he contacted Poe’s aunt and mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, immediately after Poe’s death, but records show he only wrote to her after she asked for news more than a month later. Moran also described Poe saying poetic words before dying, but others doubted Poe could have spoken such sentences while ill.

Moran’s accounts also included conflicting dates for when Poe arrived at the hospital, such as October 3 at 5 p.m., October 6 at 9 a.m., or October 7 at 10 p.m. He claimed to have hospital records to support these claims, but no official death certificate or records were found later. Some believe Moran’s errors were due to memory problems, a desire to romanticize Poe’s story, or age-related difficulties. Moran was 65 when he published his final account in 1885.

Cause of death

All medical records and documents, including Poe's death certificate, have been lost, if they ever existed. The exact cause of his death is unknown, but many theories have been proposed. Many biographers have studied the issue and reached different conclusions. For example, Jeffrey Meyers believed Poe may have died from low blood sugar, while John Evangelist Walsh suggested a murder plot.

Some people think Poe's death might have been related to suicide and depression. In 1848, Poe nearly died from an overdose of laudanum, a substance used as a tranquilizer and painkiller. It is unclear whether this was a suicide attempt or a mistake, but he did not die from it a year later. In 2020, a study by Ryan L. Boyd analyzed Poe's language and suggested he may have been experiencing a major depressive episode near the end of his life. However, evidence of suicide was not consistently found in Poe's professional writings, leading researchers to conclude that depression may have played a role in his death, but suicide seemed unlikely.

Snodgrass believed Poe died from alcoholism and promoted this idea. Snodgrass supported the temperance movement, which encouraged people to avoid alcohol, and used Poe as an example in his work. However, Snodgrass's claims about Poe's drinking were later found to be unreliable. Moran, who wrote about Poe in 1885, stated that Poe did not show signs of alcohol use at the time of his death, noting that "he had not the slightest odor of liquor upon his breath or person." At the time of Poe's death, some newspapers described it as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation," which were euphemisms for deaths linked to alcoholism. In a 1923 study, a psychologist suggested Poe may have had dipsomania, a term for an uncontrollable urge to drink alcohol.

The idea that Poe was an uncontrollable alcoholic is debated. His drinking companion, Thomas Mayne Reid, said Poe and he sometimes had wild "frolics" but that Poe "never went beyond the innocent mirth in which we all indulge." Reid acknowledged this as a flaw but said it was not a habit. Some believed Poe became drunk easily, even after one glass of wine, but others said he only drank during difficult times and sometimes went months without alcohol. His membership in the Sons of Temperance, a group that promoted sobriety, added to the confusion. William Glenn, who helped Poe make a pledge to avoid alcohol, later wrote that there was no reason to believe Poe broke his promise while in Richmond. Claims about a drug overdose have also been proven false, though they are still sometimes reported. Thomas Dunn English, a doctor and critic of Poe, stated that he saw no signs of drug use in Poe before 1846 and called the accusation "a baseless slander."

Other possible causes of Poe's death include rare brain diseases, brain tumors, diabetes, enzyme deficiencies, syphilis, apoplexy, delirium tremens, epilepsy, and meningeal inflammation. In May 1848, a doctor named John W. Francis examined Poe and believed he had heart disease, which Poe later denied. A 2006 test of Poe's hair found no evidence of lead or mercury poisoning. Cholera has also been suggested as a cause, as Poe passed through Philadelphia during a cholera outbreak in 1849 and wrote to his aunt that he may have "had the cholera, or spasms quite as bad."

Because Poe was found on the day of an election, some people suggested he was a victim of cooping, a form of election fraud. Cooping involved abducting people, drugging or beating them, and forcing them to vote for a political party multiple times. Victims were often dressed in disguises to avoid being recognized. Poe was found wearing dirty and disheveled clothes, which some believe supports the cooping theory. However, his social status in Baltimore may have made it unlikely for this scam to work.

In 1996, a study in the Maryland Medical Journal by cardiologist R. Michael Benitez suggested Poe's death may have been caused by rabies, possibly from one of his pets. Signs pointing to rabies included delirium and difficulty drinking water (a symptom called hydrophobia), as well as the possibility that the virus could have been present in his body for up to a year before his death.

Funeral

Edgar Allan Poe's funeral took place at 4 p.m. on Monday, October 8, 1849, in Baltimore. Only a few people were present. Poe's uncle-in-law, Henry Herring, provided a simple mahogany coffin. His cousin, Neilson Poe, supplied the hearse. Moran's wife made the shroud. The funeral was led by Reverend W. T. D. Clemm, who was the cousin of Poe's late wife, Virginia. Others present included Snodgrass, Baltimore lawyer and former University of Virginia classmate Zaccheus Collins Lee, Poe's first cousin Elizabeth Herring and her husband, and former schoolmaster Joseph Clarke. The ceremony lasted only three minutes in the cold and damp weather. Reverend Clemm chose not to give a sermon because the crowd was too small. Sexton George W. Spence described the weather: "It was a dark and gloomy day, not raining but just kind of raw and threatening." Poe was buried at the back of Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in a simple coffin without handles, a nameplate, cloth lining, or a cushion for his head.

On October 10, 2009, Poe received a second funeral in Baltimore. Actors portrayed Poe's contemporaries and other long-dead writers and artists. Each person paid their respects and read eulogies based on writings about Poe. The funeral included a replica of Poe's casket and a wax cadaver.

Burial and reburial

Edgar Allan Poe was first buried in an unmarked grave near the back of the churchyard, close to his grandfather, David Poe, Sr. A headstone made of white Italian marble was paid for by Neilson Poe, who hired a stone mason named Hugh Sisson. However, a train accident destroyed the stone mason's yard before the headstone could be delivered. Because there was not enough money for a new monument, Poe’s grave was marked with a simple sandstone block that read "No. 80."

In 1873, Southern poet Paul Hamilton Hayne visited Poe’s grave and wrote an article criticizing its poor condition and suggesting a better monument. Sara Sigourney Rice, a schoolteacher from Baltimore, used renewed interest in Poe’s grave to ask people for donations. Many people in Baltimore and across the United States contributed. The new monument was designed by Baltimore architect George A. Frederick and made by stone mason Sisson. It included a medallion picture of Poe by Baltimore artist Adalbert J. Volck. The total cost of the monument was slightly more than $1,500, which would be worth about $63,300 in 2026.

Poe was reburied on October 1, 1875, near the front of Westminster Church. A ceremony was held on November 17 to dedicate the new tomb. Poe’s original burial spot was marked with a large stone donated by Orin C. Painter, though it was placed in the wrong location. People who attended the ceremony included Neilson Poe, who gave a speech and called his cousin "one of the best hearted men that ever lived," as well as Snodgrass, Nathan C. Brooks, and John Hill Hewitt. Although several famous poets were invited, only Walt Whitman attended. Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem that was read at the ceremony:

Fate that once denied him,
And envy that once decried him,
And malice that belied him,
Now cenotaph his fame.

Unbeknownst to the reburial crew, the headstones on all graves had been turned to face the West Gate in 1864, instead of the east. When workers dug up Poe’s remains, they first found the body of a 19-year-old Maryland militiaman named Philip Mosher, Jr. After locating Poe’s body, they opened his coffin, and one person saw: "The skull was in excellent condition—the shape of the forehead, one of Poe’s striking features, was easily discerned."

A few years later, the remains of Poe’s wife, Virginia, were also moved to this location. The cemetery where she was buried had been destroyed in 1875, and no family members claimed her remains. William Gill, an early biographer of Poe, collected her bones and stored them in a box he kept under his bed. Virginia’s remains were finally buried with her husband’s on January 19, 1885, the 76th anniversary of Poe’s birth and nearly ten years after his monument was built. Spence, the man who was the sexton during Poe’s original burial and during his exhumation and reburial, attended the ceremony where Poe’s remains were placed with Virginia and her mother, Maria Clemm.

Posthumous character assassination

On October 9, the day after Edgar Allan Poe was buried, an obituary was published in the New York Tribune. The writer, who signed their name as "Ludwig," praised Poe's writing skills and talent but also criticized his personality and behavior. The obituary claimed Poe was a "brilliant, but erratic star" in literature but also described him as someone who walked the streets in confusion, talked to himself, and was often angry and arrogant. Later, it was discovered that "Ludwig" was actually Rufus Wilmot Griswold, a former friend of Poe. Even before Poe died, Griswold had spread false and harmful information about him. Much of what Griswold wrote in the obituary was copied almost word for word from a fictional character in a book by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. This obituary became the most common description of Poe.

Griswold also claimed that Poe had asked him to be his literary executor, a person responsible for managing an author's work after their death. Griswold had previously helped other writers, but it is unclear whether Poe officially chose him or if Griswold took the role by mistake or through deception by Poe's relatives. In 1850, Griswold, along with two other writers, published a collection of Poe's works that included a biographical article titled "Memoir of the Author." This article portrayed Poe as a morally corrupt, drunken, and drug-addicted person. Many parts of the article were believed to be made up by Griswold. People who knew Poe, such as Sarah Helen Whitman and George Rex Graham, criticized the article. John Neal, who had praised Poe in 1829, called Griswold a "Rhadamanthus," a term meaning someone who is not easily tricked and seeks recognition. Griswold's version of Poe became widely accepted because it was the only full biography available at the time and was often reprinted. Many readers believed Poe was similar to his fictional characters or were interested in reading the works of someone described as "evil."

A more accurate biography of Poe was written in 1875 by John Henry Ingram. However, many historians continued to use Griswold's description as a model for their own biographies, including works by W. H. Davenport in 1880 and Augustus Hopkins Strong in 1916. Some biographers used Poe as an example of the dangers of alcohol and drugs. In 1941, Arthur Hobson Quinn showed that Griswold had forged or rewritten several of Poe's letters included in the "Memoir of the Author." By this time, Griswold's portrayal of Poe was deeply rooted in public memory, both in the United States and globally. Despite efforts to correct this image, the distorted view of Poe has remained a key part of his legacy.