Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe should rest in peace, and right here in Baltimore. Saturday in Richmond, Va., a representative of the Poe family came down foursquare against the idea that their famous ancestor's body should be moved anywhere, but still didn't decide which American city can best lay a dominant claim to the author. The announcement, made at Richmond's Poe Museum during a 24-hour commemoration of the celebrated author's 201st birthday, is the latest declaration in a years-long mostly good-natured debate over where Poe should rest and which city most deserves his legacy.

A shocking and dastardly literary crime has been perpetrated upon a heretofore unsuspecting citizenry. How could you allow The Sun to publish such a travesty about the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes ("On the case," Dec. 23)? Contrary to what the writer claims, Sherlock Holmes was not the first consulting detective in modern literature, and Arthur Conan Doyle did not invent the police procedural. In fact, a character named C. Auguste Dupin was on the case nearly five decades before Holmes made his first appearance.

If you're a book-lover and football-lover (there really are a few of us out there), you've gotta love Stevie Baggs of the Baltimore Ravens. The Bethune-Cookman University grad is nicknamed "Shakespeare," because he's known for making plays. For the uninitiated, that means he does some eye-opening work on the field. A little bit of football humor, but not bad for a sport known more for head-banging than than for the bon mot. It's fitting that Baggs plays for the Ravens, which has its own rich literary heritage.

"Villains!" I shrieked. "Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! Tear up the planks! Here, here! It is the beating of his hideous heart."dgar Allan Poe The incessant pounding of a murdered old man's heart beats loudly in the guilty conscience of his mad killer in Edgar Allan Poe's chilling story, "The Tell-Tale Heart."A theatrical presentation of the classic horror piece will be staged in the next few weeks in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Poe House and Museum and to commemorate the 141st anniversary of the author's death.

Will someone now leave roses and cognac at his grave?A mystery man who for nearly 50 years left roses and cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe died in December, according to a computer-written note found early yesterday morning at Poe's grave.The note was tucked among three roses and a bottle of Martell's cognac hand-delivered by another mystery man at Poe's grave on his 190th birthday."The gentleman who started the tradition in 1949 died from a prolonged illness this December," says Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum.

Interested in spending Halloween with a new work from Edgar Allan Poe? Impossible? Well, yeah. Unless you're willing to let your imagination run free. That's what Baltimoreans Jonathon Scott Fuqua, Steven Parke and Stephen John Phillips did, and the result is In The Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe, a 92-page graphic novel published recently by Vertigo, the adult arm of DC Comics. Taking the form of an unpublished journal written by Poe that spans nearly his entire career as a published writer, Shadow posits a man whose talents were either a curse (in the form of the ghost of his late father, who serves as his unwelcome muse)

Free POE PROJECT: Single Carrot Theatre, 120 W. North Ave., offers four free performances of an interactive work in progress based on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. The show takes place today and Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Call 443-844-9253 or go to singlecarrot.com. The event is held in conjunction with the citywide cultural celebration, Free Fall Baltimore, which runs through Oct. 31. For a complete list of Free Fall events, go to freefallbaltimore.com.

Tour d'Amour of Mount Vernon Where: Starts at the Brass Elephant, 924 N. Charles St. When: 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday Why: Many of the great Baltimoreans have apparently found and lost love near our Washington Monument. The guided tour includes the stories of heartbreak and woe that tormented Edgar Allan Poe, H.L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key and others. Information: Call 603-863-7848. The tour covers about one mile and lasts one hour. Reservations are not required, and the tour is free of charge.

Edgar Allan Poe(1809-1849)Poe, whose earthly remains rest in Baltimore, wrote primarily on horror, reason and beauty. One of his more grim works, "Raven," gained him his initial notoriety."

Taking the role of C. Auguste Dupin, the fictional detective who solved "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," a Johns Hopkins medical school psychologist has focused her deductive powers on the mystery of Edgar Allan Poe's melancholy and madness.Her solution seems both elegant and obvious: the writer, she says, was probably manic-depressive. And, she says, illness probably inspired his croaking raven, razor-edged pendulum and other gloomy tales of death and mourning.Dr. Kay R. Jamison, speaking yesterday at a Hopkins symposium on mood disorders, argued that Poe is probably one of many writers and artists who have suffered from the ailment, which is marked by wild swings between frenzied, compulsive activity and crippling despair.