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In a continued effort to celebrate Edgar Allan Poe's connections to Boston, Professor of English Paul Lewis — who serves as chairman of the city’s Poe Foundation — has launched an educational walking tour in the Hub, which features sites associated with America’s master of the macabre.
In late May, he offered the tour as part of his participation in the annual American Literature Association Conference, which this year was held downtown. But instead of the 20 or so anticipated takers, the event drew a crowd of 120 participants, including professors and graduate students.
This fall, tours will be offered at 1 p.m. on the following dates in October: Sunday, October 9 (which Lewis notes is two days after the 162nd anniversary of Poe's death), and Saturday, October 29.
According to Lewis, “the 90-minute tour explores Poe's ties to the city, from his birth here in 1809 to his return as a young man in 1827 and his controversial appearance before the Boston Lyceum in 1845.”
Though Poe spent only about a year living in Boston, Lewis says he was intensely engaged throughout his career with the writers and editors he called "Frogpondians."
"The Bostonians are very well in their way,” according to Poe in 1845. “Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin-pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good."
Among sites on the tour — titled “The Raven's Trail: A Walking Tour of Poe's Boston” — are the Poe birthplace, Edgar Allan Poe Square, the grave of Charles Sprague (called the banker-poet of Boston), the Frog Pond on Boston Common, the Nathan Appleton mansion, the Boston Athenaeum, and the King's Chapel Burying Ground.
As part of an exhibition curated by Lewis at the Boston Public Library — "The Raven in the Frog Pond: Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston,” which commemorated the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth on Jan. 19, 1809 — he and associate curator Dan Currie (an independent Boston historian and Poe Foundation president and clerk) mapped “The Raven's Trail: Poe's Boston Then & Now," which identifies and provides directions to sites associated with Poe’s life and work in Boston.
A version of the groundbreaking exhibition — which drew record crowds during its display from December 17, 2009 through March 10, 2010 — is available online here.
It showcases the topics explored in the BPL display: Poe’s Life in Boston; Poe's Quarrel with Boston Writers; Poe, Boston, and the Business of Publishing; Illustrated Poe; and Poe in Popular Culture.
The $10 cost of the Poe walking tour supports the creation of public art in Poe Square, sponsored by the nonprofit Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston which seeks to honor Poe in the city where he was born and to promote cultural tourism in general.
The naming of that square followed a Boston College celebration of the Poe bicentenary in 2009 organized by Lewis. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared January 2009 “Edgar Allan Poe Appreciation Month” and designated the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South, off Boston Common, as “Edgar Allan Poe Square” in Poe’s honor.
Tour groups meet at Poe Square: the intersection of Boylston Street and Charles Street South, at 2 Park Plaza in Boston. For more information, visit www.poeboston.org or contact Lewis at paul.lewis@bc.edu.