Unsolved, Poe's Death, Editor or Judge Appointed?

Edgar Allan Poe, the gothic Shakespeare of American literature, known as a writer of short fiction including horror, detective and lyrical or epic ballads, perhaps, it is strange or ethereal, he died under mysterious circumstances which have yet to be clearly explained.

October 3, 1849, Joseph W. Walker found him on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland on election day. Poe was in an apparent state of delirium. At the Washington College Hospital, he was pronounced dead on Sunday, October 7.

In his last days, the poet wasn't of sound mind to offer details as to how he stumbled
into such troublesome circumstances or conditions.

Among popular theories, cooping is suspected. It's described as a sort of hazing involving unwilling participants who are forced to forge repeat votes for an unlikely candidate during the election
process at the polling place. Legend has it he continued to mutter the name Reynolds on his death
bed in exasparation. Incidentally, Henry R. Reynolds was a judge who was appointed to oversee
the polls on the day of election though research confirms he may have known of two men by this
same last name, one of which he praised with his pen. It isn't obvious he ever met either man in person. Therefore, it would be difficult to conclude who he was calling out to and why.

Other theories include suicide, cholera and influenza.In 1996, Dr.Benitez of the University of Maryland theorized possible rabies to have resulted in Poe's death based on historical documentation from the hospital where our subject met his fate. However, an autopsy was never performed.

Among the most famous of Poe's poems, The Raven, an eternal voice of paraniod desperation,published in 1845, did the author realize the raven in Native American culture was considered a trickster and a teacher? Could he have been expressing bitter distrust toward a critic as he presumed some dark force was out
to get him?

As we examine his death, there is no assumption Poe lived without enemies. He was regarded as the strictest critic of his time. However, he faced much criticism from his former friend and first editor who later became his rival and competitor in the literary world.

The hatred between the two began when Dr. Rufus B. Griswold ,who was well aquainted with Edgar Allan,replaced Poe as editor of Graham's Magazine, garnering a higher salary than Poe himself had
been offered.

Their need to compete carried over into their love lifes pertaining to an interest both men
held for poet, Frances Sargent Osgood.

Differences hardly reconciled led Griswold to heighten the act of character assassination immediately after Poe's demise. Griswold showed no sympathy when he wrote a hateful obituary for his former rival.

He spent the remainder of his life penning criticisms against Edgar Allan Poe while claiming to be the choosen literary executor of Poe's complete written works.

Whether political fraud, jealousy and rivarly or some unknown, masked disease claimed the life of our beloved poet, there's no doubt his work continues to haunt American literature to this day.
However, it would seem to me Griswold's lack of grief and continued contempt for his competitor
may reveal a tell- tale heart.

Well over a century old, this is one mystery which may never reach completion. With all that has been channelled through research, good night, friends. This has been an experimental study on the secrets kept within the stone walls of literature and it's history.