★ 01/02/2023

In this intrigue-filled offering, Dawidziak (Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone), a former television and film critic, achieves the difficult feat of delivering a fresh biography of Edgar Allan Poe. Dawidziak cleverly frames his narrative as an investigation into the writer’s puzzling demise: Poe died in Baltimore in 1849 at age 40, apparently delirious and by some accounts calling out for someone named Reynolds. These murky circumstances have sparked enduring fascination among fans and scholars, and Dawidziak surveys the most commonly proposed causes of death, which include “binge drinking, rabies, murder, a brain tumor, encephalitis brought on by exposure, syphilis, suicide, heart disease.” The author builds tension by alternating chapters between Poe’s final days and his earlier life, dispelling myths about Poe (such as that he was addicted to opium or had a sullen demeanor) and asserting that, despite his reputation as a “sickly, pasty guy with... a raven perched on his shoulder,” he was best known as a critic during his lifetime and wrote many “satires, hoaxes, and humorous pieces.” Though Dawidziak resists offering a definitive cause of death (even as he identifies tuberculosis as the prime suspect), his sharp analysis of how Poe’s macabre pieces came to overshadow the rest of his work will give readers a fuller understanding of Poe’s varied artistry and character. This has revelations to spare. (Feb.)

*A 2024 Edgar Award Nominee*

“A biography that reads like a gripping, well-reported feature story.... [Dawidziak's] informed enthusiasm sweeps the reader irresistibly along.” –The Washington Post

“Part high-speed tour of Poe’s tumultuous career and part cold-case investigation of his premature and enigmatic end.” –Wall Street Journal

“This bio’s mode of presentation is almost as striking as its subject’s life…vibrant.” –Washington Independent Review of Books

“Written like a novel with frequent quotes and stirring accounts that paint vivid details…a page-turner from start to finish.” -Forbes

“Excellent…Dawidziak’s biography reaches beyond the myth of Poe to reveal the actual man and writer, all while painting a vivid picture of the era in which he lived.” –Bookpage (starred)

“In this intrigue-filled offering, Dawidziak achieves the difficult feat of delivering a fresh biography of Edgar Allan Poe…this has revelations to spare.” –Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Dawidziak’s thoroughly researched investigation meticulously explores the various theories surrounding Poe’s death while vividly capturing the public’s ongoing fascination with this quintessential tortured soul.” –Booklist (starred)

“A brisk, satisfying biography of a literary icon who still fascinates.” –Kirkus Reviews

“A Mystery of Mysteries is, itself, a mystery worthy of Poe’s fictional sleuth C. Auguste Dupin.” –New York Journal of Books

“A Mystery of Mysteries will surely fascinate even the mildly-curious Edgar Allan Poe fan…a poignant analysis.” –The Week, “8 must-read books in 2023”

“Even those familiar with Poe's story will find plenty of surprises here, while those who know him only by reputation will get a better-rounded view of a man who was far more than an author of a few scary stories.” –The Columbus Dispatch

“Cleverly constructed…With rich detail, engaging prose, Dawidziak offers an intriguing and welcome addition to Poe scholarship.” –Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Dawidziak releases [Poe] from this caricature, emphasizing Poe’s work as a literary critic, his fine sense of humor and the vast amount of work he produced.” –Akron Beacon Journal

"Holds precious information about Edgar Allan Poe's life and professional career beyond the mainstream stereotypical picture that the general public owns of the American poet...an entertaining and engaging read." –The Edgar Allan Poe Review

“Edgar Allan Poe has brooded over the world’s comprehension as the dark prince of horror tales: a hollow-eyed specter surrounded by candle-tossed shadows, a raven on his writing table, an empty cognac glass at his elbow. In this revelatory biography, Mark Dawidziak honors the Gothic nature of Poe’s work, yet sweeps open the curtains to throw full light upon this masterful poet and shaper of American literature.” –Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Flags of Our Fathers and Mark Twain: A Life

“A poignant and realistic picture of Poe through the fascinating black prism of his mysterious death.” —J.W. Ocker, Edgar Award-winning author of Poe-Land

“Mark Dawidziak plumbs the mysteries of Poe’s life and career with extraordinary skill and knowledge. Much like Montresor leading Fortunato through the winding catacombs, he leaves the reader surprised and thoroughly ensnared.” –Daniel Stashower, Edgar Award-winning author of The Hour of Peril and The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder

In this revelatory biography, Mark Dawidziak honors the Gothic nature of Poe’s work, yet sweeps open the curtains to throw full light upon this masterful poet and shaper of American literature.”

Mark Dawidziak plumbs the mysteries of Poe’s life and career with extraordinary skill and knowledge. Much like Montresor leading Fortunato through the winding catacombs, he leaves the reader surprised and thoroughly ensnared.”

A poignant and realistic picture of Poe through the fascinating black prism of his mysterious death.”

For many readers of Edgar Allan Poe, the story of his life starts with his famously bizarre and unexplained death at the age of 40. This audio biography alternates sections that focus on his final weeks and snippets about his earlier life, including his childhood as an orphan. He was raised by a foster family who shaped the man he was to become. Grover Gardner's narration is fittingly straightforward and unembellished, though his pace is perhaps a tad too slow. He effectively captures the author's style, which is more journalistic than academic and relies on direct quotes from his sources. The author doesn't definitively solve the mystery of Poe's demise, but what fun would it be if he had? D.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

2022-11-24
A new life of the enigmatic writer.

TV and film critic Dawidziak draws on published and archival sources, including more than 50 interviews with Edgar Allan Poe scholars and other experts, to create a colorful portrait of the poet, critic, and story writer. The author structures his biography as parallel timelines, interweaving a chronology of significant periods in Poe’s life with a close investigation of the mystery of his sudden death. Seeing his subject as “a creature of contradiction, duality, and ambiguity,” Dawidziak examines the myths that swirl around Poe’s career, reputation, and relationships. Orphaned as a young child, he was adopted by the “aloof and exacting” John Allan and his benevolent wife, Fanny, whose frequent illnesses made her inaccessible to her young ward. Although the couple provided a home, Edgar never felt truly loved; after Fanny’s death in 1829, his relationship with Allan grew increasingly contentious. At 17, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia, where a classmate found him to be “very excitable & restless, at times wayward, melancholic & morose, but again—in his better moods frolicksome, full of fun & a most attractive and agreeable companion.” He soon left college life for a stint at West Point, where his waywardness again got the better of him. A devotee of Lord Byron, Poe saw himself as a romantic, “separated from the masses not by class but by intellect, sensitivity, and genius. Yet, at the same time,” Dawidziak writes, “he craves a place in the august circles where he is granted admittance but never full acceptance.” He also craved love, which he found from his devoted aunt, Maria Clemm, and her daughter, Virginia, whom Poe married in 1836, when she was 13. Offering a sympathetic, if not revisionist, portrait, Dawidziak does rule out several theories about Poe’s death—rabies, carbon monoxide poisoning, a drug overdose, epilepsy, apoplexy, and liver disease, to name a few—to defend a well-grounded conclusion.

A brisk, satisfying biography of a literary icon who still fascinates.