I have gone to every website on Edgar Allan Poe and none of them tell how he died. So my question is: How did Edgar Allan Poe die?

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2000

Answers

Chelley.

If there is any historical figure that has died a more mysterious death than Edgar Allan Poe, the name does not jump immediately to mind and consequently, there has been much speculation and many presumptuous opinions and theoretical best guesses over the past 150 years. Today, there appear to be very few known facts that would definitively resolve this issue in the minds of most Poe enthusiasts. Personally, I think the Cooping theory offers the preferable explanation. I say preferable because, to be quite honest, I, nor anyone else knows for certain. What I do know for certain is that in the absence of dramatic and compelling proof, the cause of Edgar A. Poes death will remain unknown.

Some excellent reading on this subject can be found at the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore website at:

http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poedeath.htm .

The article provides some good background and a description of the Alcohol Theory and the Cooping Theory. It also discusses, briefly, the theory offered in 1996 by Dr. R. Michael Benitez that Poe had died as a result of contracting rabies. Personally, I find it to be a presumptuous diagnosis but I am no doctor.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, April 29, 2000

they say he died to conjestion of the brain. all though it has been a big question and there are many speculations. This is what we learned in our english class

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000