This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Ready to feel energized and in control again? At Orderly Meds, we have helped thousands just like you take charge of their health with a GLP-1. If you've tried dieting, exercising, and relying on willpower, and nothing seems to stick, then it might be time to talk to a licensed provider about your options.
That's what Orderly Meds is for. This fall, choose healthier habits for yourself with a visit to orderlymeds.com. You don't need to visit with a physician in person to become eligible. Orderly Meds has a simple Virtual process. Connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether a GLP-1 treatment may be appropriate for you wherever you are.
Getting started from the comfort of home online. Change your habits and consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds. dot com to learn more. That's orderlymeds.
dot com. Orderlymeds. dot com. Gain confidence and choose better habits this fall. Compounded medications are not FDA approved.
Eligibility required and determined by a. Individual results may vary. See website for details. My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters.
Every moment matters. There's a person behind every problem. I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do. I'm Ben, and I work at United Healthcare. I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters.
It's more than just work. We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me. This is Hoda Kotb from Joy One Hundred One with Hoda Kotb.
Every purchase is a financial decision, so it's worth asking: What am I getting out of this? If you're using the Chase Freedom Flex Card, you can maximize your cash back on things you need. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. Sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex Card. Learn more at chase.com/getflex.
This is a paid collaboration with Chase Freedom Flex. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank. A member FDIC, subject to credit approval. Offers subject to change. Terms apply.
This is Cheekies from Soul Searching with Cheekies.
Okay, we're just going to make a quick stop, girl. That is literally the biggest lie I tell myself. Because one quick stop turns into picking up tu gente, grabbing snacks, loading up everybody's stuff. Y de repente andamos en una aventura. Y es que a veces the best adventures are the ones that you make up along the way.
That's why the 2026 Nissan Rogue is ready for wherever the day takes you. With Intel. All wheel drive and five drive modes. Plus, with the twelve point three inch display and Google built in, you've got your maps and your soundtrack right there. Destination set, música on the twenty twenty six Nissan Rogue, ready for whatever comes next.
Power Slap 24 arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October 9th at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet. Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at $60 and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or PowerSlap.com. That's Friday, October 9th in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now.
Don't miss out on this one-of-a-kind live event. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Edgar Allan Poe is known for his scary short stories and poems, and when we look at his life, early tragedies explain a lot. But what we don't often think of when we consider Poe are his comedic writings, his detective stories, and even a bit of early science fiction.
Here to pull back the curtain on Poe is Chris Semprner, curator at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia. Take it away, Chris. Poe was born in 1809, the same year as Abraham Lincoln. But he was born up in Boston. His parents were traveling actors, so his mother was from England.
She'd come here to the states as a little girl, and she'd been acting on stages up and down the East Coast. You usually traveled up and down the coast with the theatrical seasons. Always try to stay one step ahead of the next yellow fever outbreak. I mean, she had a pretty rough. She lost her mother to yellow fever in South Carolina.
Her stepfather to yellow fever in North Carolina. Then her first husband to yellow fever in Virginia. All by the time she was eighteen. Then she remarried at age eighteen to David Poe Jr., who was Edgar's father, and he appears to run out in the family. Left Poe's mother to fend for herself and three kids.
And when she was dying here in Richmond, some local ladies heard the famous actress Mrs. Poe is in ill health. She's out of resources, and they started bringing her meals. Even though a society lady wouldn't even associate with an actress, they were bringing her meals and caring for her. One of those ladies was Frances Valentine Allen, and she agreed to take in Little Eddie.
So she and her husband christened him Edgar Allan Poe. And his sister and brother went to a little bit different families. You don't hear a lot about his brother. He died when he was just 24. His sister stayed here in Richmond, and she became a schoolteacher.
She taught art and penmanship.
So Poe grew up here in Richmond and went to local schools. When he was six years old, the Allens went to England and Scotland, so he got to see Europe for a little while. He got to. Go to a good boarding school over there in London. Came back here and was just enchanted by the landscape around here, the river, and that same river that's just a few blocks from where we're sitting now.
Hopakly grew up in that river. He describes how he'd sail out to the little islands or swim. He's maybe one of the best swimmers ever in that river. Today he holds a record for swimming six miles against the tide in the James River. Still hadn't been beaten.
We had a guy come out here a few years ago, the swim fins and everything, saying I'm going to beat Poe's record, and we never heard from him again. He's maybe maybe still down there, but Poe also developed a love for poetry. His foster father never really warmed up to him. Never legally adopted him. That he was an importer exporter, he imported a lot of the latest British magazines.
So Poe got a chance to read the latest British Romantic poet, and he, he thought that this guy, Lord Byron, the guy they called Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, was pretty much the greatest thing ever. The rock star of his day, dressed in black, Byron had swum the Hellespont. That's part of the reason why Poe swam so much in the James River. He's trying to be like Byron. But while Poe is here, he also first fell in love.
He met a girl called Jane Stannard. He called the first purely ideal love of my soul, and his poem to Helen is dedicated to her. He thought she was Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Problem was, he's fourteen; she's his best friend's mother, so it wouldn't really work out. But poets like unrequited love; they like to worship somebody from afar.
So he showed her his poetry. She gave him motherly advice and encouragement. She probably thought he was a nice, weird kid. And but then shortly after they met, she went insane and died. And that left a lasting impression on Poe.
When he's growing up, his mother died when he was two. His first love here dies when he's fifteen. Then his foster mother died when he was twenty.
So over and over again, when he really became attached to someone, they end up dying early. And then he got married. And his wife got sick, and she died, and she was just twenty-four years old.
So he always had that sense that beauty was mingled with loss. And when he was about fifteen, he met another girl. Her name was Elmira Royster. She came from pretty wealthy family. Her father was a merchant.
And there was no way her father wanted her messing around. This punk kid, this actress's son, who'd never been legally adopted, wasn't going to inherit anything.
So Edgar Elmire had to sneak away to the little garden up on Franklin Street just to see each other. And they made this pact: I'm going to go to college, make a name for myself, get an education. Think Poe probably thought he was going to become a professor, you know, because you couldn't make a living off your poetry. That would just be crazy. He's going to make a living from his professorship and write poetry in his free time.
Sort of the the Longfellow game plan, you know, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the professor at Harvard, married a wealthy woman, and then he got to write poetry in his free time. And while he's out there, Poe excelled at languages. He studied ancient to modern languages. Jefferson had this plan that students could pick their own curriculum.
So he's decided, I'm going to study that. Back here, Mr. Allen, the importer exporter, he thought, Why are you wasting your time learning that? You need to learn skills that can help you take over my import export business.
So Poe is there, no money. Allen wouldn't pay. He had no money, so he had this bright idea. Why don't I gamble to raise my tuition money? And then he got himself about two thousand dollars in debt.
After the first nine months, he couldn't stay there, dropped out of college, came back here, and found out Elmyra had dumped him. She'd done him wrong, so he decided, well, no more Elmyra. I can't go back to UVA. I'm gonna go off and find adventure.
So he stowed away aboard a coal ship. He's 18 years old and just ran away from home. Poe still didn't know the full story, though. She still loved him. Apparently, he had been sending her letters from college.
As soon as he got to her house, her father destroyed them. Her father did not want her to know that Poe had been writing her. Her father convinced her that Poe had forgotten about her. Maybe he'd met somebody better at college. Even though you know it's all boys back then, but.
So she thought she'd been forgotten. She accepted a proposal from somebody else, and that's who she married. And you've been listening to Chris Semprner talk about the early life of Edgar Allan Poe. And my goodness, all he knew—it was loss. Beauty and love were always mingled with loss with young Edgar.
When we come back, more of the story—the life of Edgar Allan Poe—here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories. And all of our history stories are brought to us by our generous sponsors, including Hillsdale College, where students go to learn all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that matter in life. If you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to hillsdale.edu.
That's hillsdale.edu. If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds. dot com to learn about which GLP one you may be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Gain confidence, choose healthy habits this fall.
Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds. dot com. That's orderlymeds. dot com.
Taking care of yourself feels great. Confounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual. Results may vary.
See website for details. Hi, I'm Steph, and I work at United Healthcare. When I think about United Healthcare's members, I think of my own family. My niece was diagnosed with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. I know how hard it is for families.
At United Healthcare, we can make it easier. I'm Brian. I care because I know what it's like to not speak the language. It's not easy. Health insurance is complicated.
I would say our job is to make everything easy for our UHC members. I work for United Healthcare. I'm committed to care. Power Slab 24 arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October 9th at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet.
Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at sixty dollars and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or PowerSlap.com. That's Friday, October ninth, in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now. Don't miss out on this one-of-a-kind live event. This is Hoda Kotb from Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.
Halloween has a funny way of making you buy things you'd never normally buy. A 10-foot skeleton, sure. A full-size fog machine, why not? Three bags of candy that somehow become six bags of candy. It happens.
Which brings me to the Chase Freedom Flex card, the savvy decision that will earn you more cash back on the everyday purchases plus the extraordinary Halloween tricks and treats. With Freedom Flex, you earn even more treats on your Halloween and everyday needs. You get five percent cash back on popular rotating quarterly categories, three percent on dining and drugstores, and one percent on all other purchases. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. That's no tricks, all treats.
More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. So sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex card. Learn more at chase.com/getflex. This is a paid. Collaboration with Chase Freedom Flex cards issued by J.P.
Morgan Chase Bank, NA, member FDIC, subject to credit approval. Offer subject to change. Terms apply. Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using Zumo to stream music from iHeart Nineties Radio is easy.
Or play iHeart Country Classics Radio or hip hop beats—your choice, all for free. Stream easy with Zumo Play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts, no hassle. Get cozy on the couch and binge your favorite movies, like Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. All streaming free on Zumo Play.
Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy. And we're back with our American stories, and the story of Edgar Allan Poe. Chris Semprner, curator at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia.
Was just telling us about the unfortunate losses Poe experienced as a boy, and how his childhood sweetheart Elmira married another man. As a result, Poe decided to strike out on his own. Let's return to Chris.
So he decided he's going to see the world, have all sorts of adventures. He enlisted the U.S. Army up in Boston. They sent him down to Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. Eventually, up here to Fort Monroe in Virginia.
And in two years, made it from a private to a sergeant major. He did outstanding job. Different jobs during the time. He's a clerk for while. He's an artificer.
He makes gunpowder and explosive. Really technical. Demanding job because we know he's good at because he didn't blow off an arm or leg doing it because a lot of this was really experimental back then. Making sure that if you had the right amount of powder, that the projectile would arc at just the right point and go just the right velocity.
So Poe did so well, he thought, you know what, I I could make a living in the military. I could become an officer. And he was really chummy with his officers, and they got him letters of recommendations. Also, back here in Richmond, the Allens were friends with General Winfield Scott, and this is a guy who was in the War of eighteen twelve, the Seminole Wars, Mexican American War. He was even later an adviser to Lincoln during the Civil War.
So this is somebody that he's got some influence, and he helped. Poe get into the United States Military Academy at West Point, and they checked the records, and for ten years before that and ten years after that, nobody else was on record for having gone from enlisted man to a cadet at West Point. Poe also heard while he was in the military, his foster mother Frances Allen was sick, and she said the last thing she wanted to see before she died was her little Eddie, and he made it back here a day late for her funeral. And he was just heartbroken over that, and that's when he decided, "I'm going to make something of myself for Francis Allen's sake." And Allen helped him get out of his enlistment because he still has enlistment; he still has to serve that.
So, what you could do back then, if you had the money, was hire somebody to take your place. And serve out the rest of your enlistment for, and you can get somebody for twenty-five dollars. But Poe's desperate, so he offers this guy Bully Graves seventy-five dollars, a big chunk of change, to take his place. But never paid him. And Allen had the money.
Allen's worth about three quarters of a million dollars.
So this guy's Bill Gates, but he didn't want to pay for it. Po at one point got a letter from Bully asking, "Well, where's my money? I'm I'm serving out your enlistment for you. Where's my money?" And Po wrote back, "Well, Allen has it.
So ask him." So he wrote Allen. Allen act like, "I'm I'm not paying you." So Bully wrote Po again while Po's at West Point and says, "Allen says he's done know anything about it." So Po writes back. You know, Alan, he's not sober very often. He probably just got drunk and forgot about the whole thing.
So he probably needs to be reminded. And that letter we found in Alan's files.
So apparently, Bully showed that to Alan. Says, "Oh yeah, your your son's talking smack about you." He says you are a drunk. And about that time when Alan cut Poe off for good. Poe decided West Point was not the place for him. He hated it there.
He's racking up demerits left and right. But the cadets loved him. They thought he's a funny guy, the great sense of humor, a practical joker, and they all chipped in. About over 125 cadets chipped in to help him publish a book of poetry, thinking it was gonna be funny poetry, making fun of all the command officers. Instead, the book came out.
And it's a bunch of sad poetry about death and mourning and despair. And they threw most of the copies into the Hudson River just get rid of them. Even our copy has obscenity scrawled on the front page about how much that cadet hated it. He was ripped off. The book is a cheat.
They probably would have given Poe a good beating, except he'd already been expelled. He wasn't there anymore by the time the book came out.
So that book. Didn't really make a lot of waves, but some of the poems in it.
Now we look back and say, "Oh yeah, that's Lenore, that's The Sleeper." These are some of his major poems. He's already publishing here at the age of 22. He's already off to a good start. At the age of 22, this is his third book of poetry, and he's got a lot of his classic poems. About half the poems he ever writes.
He got the hint now that you know poetry really wasn't going to pay the bills, but he saw that magazines were popping up everywhere.
So he said, "What do magazines want?" And he remembered growing up with Mr. Allen reading the latest British magazines that Allen was importing, and they wanted scary, weird, mysterious stories.
So Pope put together a bunch of bizarre stories, and he heard there was a contest coming up. Hundred dollars for the best story, a huge chunk change, or years rent for the best story. He submitted a whole pack of stories, and none of them won, but the magazine printed them anyway.
So his work's got in print, but he didn't get paid for them.
So that's a problem. He's always struggling to get paid from unscrupulous magazine editors and publishers. But he kept submitting more short stories, getting his works published. Finally, won a literary contest for the story "Manuscript Found in a Bottle," and that made in the right connections where he could get a job back in Richmond. His foster father died the previous year.
They'd never reconciled. Poe wanted to reconcile. Wanted to see him one last time. And last thing I ever saw him was he had to force his way into the house past Allen's second wife, and Allen just shook his cane at him. Said, "Get out!
I never want to see you again. I don't want to talk to you." So Poe left without ever rebuilding that bond. But Poe now had new bonds. He'd really become very attached to his aunt Maria and her daughter Virginia. And there was another cousin who was going to take in Virginia, but it looks like she he wasn't going to take in the mother too.
So Edgar wanted both these women. He wanted them to be near him, so he moved them down to Richmond with him, and he married his cousin, which wasn't usual back then. They also married a lot younger back then. These two women just supported him through everything, and this guy he really had to struggle at the Messenger. He was making a decent living, which was.
Not too much today. Today, the equivalent of seventeen thousand a year.
So you may get by if you're single, but not with the family you got to take care of and the wife you got to get tutors for her and a piano instructor. And no matter how poor he was, he made sure she had a piano to play because he loved to hear his wife play the piano and sing. And Edgar would sing along and play his flute. When Poe got the job of the Southern Literary Messenger, he's 26 years old. He's kind of a nobody here, but the magazine's not really going anywhere.
The circulation's about 500 copies a month. Nobody's buying it. The idea was that all the big cities up north—you know—they're powerful, they're educated, they're influential. They have the big magazines. All the writers live up north, and the South needs a writer.
So he started out by sending in a story called Berenice, and very specifically, he's told, you know, we need to write stories that would educate and entertain the public without offending them. And Berenice is a love story about a man named Ages who falls in love with his young cousin Berenice, and this Ages explains you that sometimes he has a one-track mind; he can see a spot. On the edge of a piece of paper and stare for so long, he goes into a self-induced trance, thinking about that little spot.
So one day he sees Berenice smile. I can think of nothing else but her precious pearly white teeth. He becomes fascinated, obsessed with those teeth. But then she gets sick and she wastes away and she's buried.
So he goes back to his chamber and he fantasizes, he dreams of her teeth until he puts himself into a tooth trance until he's snapped out of it by a servant banging the door. Says, "Wake up! Snap out of it! Your wife wasn't really dead. We accidentally buried her alive.
We heard her screaming in the cemetery. Rushed out to rescue her. By the time we got there, somebody else had already dug her up, and she didn't have any teeth." It was a pretty gruesome story. You get angry reviews for other magazines saying you can't publish this. This is injurious to the public morals.
You should ban this sort of thing. But almost got fired here. But he told his boss, "Trust me, this is what's going to sell. You're going to see if this is successful or not based on the circulation of the magazine. This is what people want." And he's right.
You know, in a year's time, their circulation increased seven times as the most popular journal in the South. He had a national reputation. And you've been listening to Chris Semphner, the curator at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, and that James River—six miles Poe swam in it. Still a record, by the way, upstream. No joke.
And what a story we're hearing about loss, about the writer's struggle, and still to this day, the artist's struggle, as it is. And he had to pay the bills, and he had this idea, he had this inner knowledge of what the people wanted. And he gave it to them. And when we come back, we're going to learn more about what happens next in Poe's remarkable life here on our American stories. If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about which GLP-1 you may be eligible for.
Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Gain confidence, choose healthy habits this fall. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.
Com. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary.
See website for details. My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters. Every moment matters. There's a person behind every problem.
I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do. I'm Ben, and I work at United Healthcare. I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters. It's more than just work. We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone.
I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me. Power Slab 24 arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October 9th at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet. Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at sixty dollars and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or PowerSlap.com.
That's Friday, October ninth in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now. Don't miss out on this one-of-a-kind live event. This is Hoda Kotb from Joy One Hundred and One with Hoda Kotb. Halloween has a funny way of making you buy things you'd never normally buy.
A ten-foot skeleton, sure. A full-size fog machine, why not? Three bags of candy that somehow become six bags of candy. It happens. Which brings me to the Chase Freedom Flex card—the savvy decision that will earn you more cash back on the everyday purchases, plus the extraordinary Halloween tricks and treats.
With Freedom Flex, you earn even more treats on your Halloween and everyday needs. You get 5% cash back on popular rotating quarterly categories, 3% on dining and drugstores, and 1% on all other purchases. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. That's no tricks, all treats. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded.
So sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex card. Learn more at chase.com/getflex. This is a paid collaboration with Chase Freedom Flex. Cards issued by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.
Member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Offer subject to change. Terms apply. Deciding on what to listen to is hard.
Using Zumo to stream music from iHeart 90s Radio is easy. Or play iHeart Country Classics Radio or Hip Hop Beats, your choice, all for free. Stream easy with Zumo Play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts, no hassle. Get cozy on the couch and binge your favorite movies like Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.
All streaming free on Zumo Play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy. And we're back with our American stories, and the story of American author Edgar Allan Poe.
We last heard that Poe had published one of his famously eerie stories and been threatened with termination from the magazine's writing staff, until the magazine's readership went up sevenfold and started Poe's ascent. As a national figure, let's return to the curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, Chris Semphner.
So people in the big cities were reading Poe now. They knew of him.
So from here, he was able to move to New York and then to Philadelphia and go from one magazine to the next, publishing some of the biggest magazines in the country. Like Godey's Ladies' Book, which had a circulation about 100,000 copies. That's where the Cask of Amontillado was first printed. Still, he's struggling to make a living because some of his stories that fall along this vein were a little bit too much. Like the Telltale Heart got rejected by the Boston Michelin, so we've got to accept something a little bit quieter next time.
And so he only got paid ten dollars for that by the Boston Pioneer, which you know it's desperately needed money. But these kind of stories they attracted an audience, but he wanted to show people that he could write more diverse things. He Read. We read a story called Hans Fall in the magazine. It was about a fellow who, to escape his debt collectors, something Poe knew very well, decided, "Why don't I just build a spaceship and go to the moon?" So Poe said, "Well, what kind of spaceship would get you there?
Definitely have to be sealed up so that you wouldn't die as soon as you left the Earth's atmosphere. And how quickly would it have to travel in order to break free of the Earth's atmosphere? How long would it take to get to the moon?" And he started thinking about the science behind the fiction, and that's when he sort of gave birth to a new genre.
Well before its time, science fiction. He wrote stories about balloon trips and about the future. Malone Tattas about the year twenty eight forty eight. How we're all flying across the ocean rather than sail. Take you three weeks to get to England.
You're just zipping back and forth in the air. You're communicating electronically long distance across the ocean.
So he had visions of what the future would be like, but he also used his science fiction as a way to comment on contemporary society.
So he's always very interested in that. And Jules Verne, still a kid when the story came out, seven years old when *Hans Fall* was published about the trip to the moon, he grew up reading Poe's works, and he said he's on to something. I like this scientific verisimilitude, this idea of. Science used to make a fantastic story seem possible, and that may have inspired Verne to make his living as the great science fictioner, the father of science fiction. But why is this important?
If you really think about it, we've been to the moon, and the people who started our space program—they said when they grew growing up, they were reading Jules Verne. Poe was interested in the minds of the murderers, and he actually, at one point, reported on a trial. There's a fellow James Wood who's on trial for murder, and he claimed that he'd been insane. He claimed he's not guilty by reason of insanity.
So Poe was reporting on the case for his magazine. And watching the way Wood acted, and he said, "Well, you know, everybody expects that someone who's insane is gonna be ranting and raving because that's the way we've seen in literature and in art. But he's been calm in everything he says, and maybe that's a sign of his insanity. And I think that's one of the sources possibly for the Telltale Heart. This guy who assures you." He's not insane.
See how calmly, how healthily I can tell the whole tale. That this is a guy that's just boiling underneath the surface, and Poe wants to find out what is that underneath the surface that separates the madman from the sane. What is it? And in some of the stories, he writes about this this urge within us that you know we have this ego telling us what's to do. We have This feeling of what's right and wrong, but then we have this dark force inside of us.
He sometimes calls the imp of the perverse that makes us do the wrong thing for the wrong thing's sake, to do harm for to ourselves. That feeling when we're on the edge of a cliff, it's urging us to jump off the cliff, even though we know it's going to destroy us. But he's also interested in. The new science of criminology. There was a fellow Eugene Vidal, the French chief of chief of police, who was a former criminal, who became the police chief, and he started studying the way crime scenes can be analyzed, the way criminals behave.
And this is a time. At the time he was writing it, New York City still didn't have a police department. The word detective is not yet into the English language. This combination of close observation. And analysis, and Poe created a new hero, a new kind of fictional hero we hadn't seen before.
He's not the typical hero; he's not you know brave or or powerful or strong or anything like that. This is a guy who works entirely within his mind. His name is August Dupin, and he and his sidekick seem to solve impossible crimes just by using reason and analysis. For one crime, there's two women have been murdered inside a locked room that's still locked from the inside. When the police break down the door, and Dupin studies the crime scene, looks for things that are out of place, like some strands of hair that don't quite look human.
And Poe launched a new literary genre, the detective story. Just a year later, so this was 1841, and later the same year. There's a lady called Mary Rogers. She was very popular cigar store clerk in New York City when proper ladies didn't typically work in cigar stores. And then all of a sudden she disappeared, and she was missing for three days.
And they found her floating in the Hudson River off of Hoboken. Back then, you they had to catch somebody. The actor got a confession. Nobody confessed. They gave up and said, "You know what?
Bet is the Irish." There's a lot of Irish and German immigrants coming to the United States then, forming gangs. You probably see movies like the Gangs of New York, and they said probably a gang of hoodlums killed her. And there's nearby roadhouse, sort of near where she was found in Hoboken, and the lady living there, Henrietta, lost said, "Oh yeah, I think think I heard some gang of hoodlums out there that night, and yeah, it's probably just hoodlums killed her." And Poe said, "Well, that doesn't make any sense. We know there's been rewards offered, and somebody would turn in the other guys to get the award for her gang. And also, these scratch marks in her back indicate she was dragged through her gangland and just picked her up and dumped her in the river.
We're looking for somebody different. And not only that, Poe wrote letters to different magazines saying, 'I figured out I've cracked the case, and you know, so I won't get sued for libel or anything like that. I'm gonna.'" Change the setting from New York to Paris, and I'm going to make the hero of the story my old fictional detective Auguste Dupin. But all the crime scene and everything I describe is going to match up to the real case, and it all matches up to the real newspaper descriptions. And he said, and in some of his letters, he wrote to magazines in Baltimore and Boston, saying, "You know, this is not just going to be an entertaining story.
This is going to be a road map that." Law enforcement can use in the future to solve cases just like this.
So he wanted there to be practical applications for this. He wanted this to change the way that we investigate crimes.
So he really saw this as being a game changer.
So the story got in print, and he never did solve the mystery because at the very end, there's a note from the editor basically saying they will only be sued for libel by saying anybody's name, so not going to tell you who did it, but. They said, you know, you can pretty much just follow the clues and figure out who did it. And Poe claimed that he'd always solved it, but that he couldn't tell you. And you've been listening to Chris Semphner, curator of the Poe Museum, telling the story of Edgar Allan Poe and a diversified literary portfolio Poe assembled from poetry to science fiction to literally creating the detective story. It didn't exist before he did it.
This genre did not exist. And by the way, it actually helped detectives be better detectives. In the end, what we learn here also is how one person's vision affects another, and then affects real life. The science behind science fiction interested Poe. His work influenced Jules Verne.
Jules Verne's work influences our astronauts, who end up going to space because of something in print. More of the story of Edgar Allan Poe here on our American Stories. If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about which GLP-1 you may be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Gain confidence, choose healthy habits this fall.
Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved.
Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Hi, I'm Steph, and I work at United Healthcare. When I think about United Healthcare's members, I think of my own family.
My niece was diagnosed with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. I know how hard it is for families. At United Healthcare, we can make it easier. I'm Brian. I care because I know what it's like to not speak the language.
It's not easy. Health insurance is complicated. I would say our job is to make everything easy for our UHC members. I work for United Healthcare. I'm committed to care.
Power Slap 24 arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October 9th at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet. Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at sixty dollars and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or PowerSlap.com. That's Friday, October ninth in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now.
Don't miss out on this one-of-a-kind live event. This is Hoda Kotb from Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. Halloween has a funny way of making you buy things you'd never normally buy. A 10-foot skeleton, sure. A full-size fog machine, why not?
Three bags of candy that somehow become six bags of candy. It happens. Which brings me to the Chase Freedom Flex card, the savvy decision that will earn you more cash back on the everyday purchases, plus the extraordinary Halloween tricks and treats. With Freedom Flex, you earn even more treats on your Halloween and everyday needs. You get 5% cash back on popular rotating quarterly categories, 3% on dining and drugstores, and 1% on all other purchases.
More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. That's no tricks, all treats. More ways to earn, more ways to get rewarded. So sign up for the Chase Freedom Flex card. Learn more at chase.com/getflex.
This is a paid. Collaboration with Chase Freedom Flex cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC. Subject to credit approval. Offer subject to change. Terms apply.
Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using Zumo to stream music from iHeart 90s Radio is easy. Or play iHeart Country Classics Radio or Hip Hop Beats, your choice, all for free. Stream easy with Zumo Play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts, no hassle.
Get cozy on the couch and binge your favorite movies like Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. All streaming free on Zumo Play. Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy.
And we're back with our American stories in the final part of our story on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. We just heard from Chris Semptner that Poe was instrumental in creating a brand new genre of storytelling, the detective story, and had claimed to have solved a real-life murder mystery. Back to Chris with the final portion of this tale. Eventually, he moved up to Philadelphia, so Richmond to New York to Philadelphia. That's where he published the Murders in the Rue Morgue.
He published the Goldbug, the Black Cat. He's starting to make a name for himself. Things were starting to go his way, and he was getting pretty comfortable working at Graham's Magazine, which became the most popular magazine in the country at the time. And one night, his wife was singing the piano, and she started coughing up blood. And they realized she had tuberculosis.
This was a death sentence. There was no cure for it, other than maybe some mercury pills, which would kill you by giving you mercury poisoning, kill you some other way.
So, he spent the next five years trying to figure out what would help her, and nothing really could. They didn't really have any cure. There's certain kind of beer they gave her that. Probably wouldn't do anything. They thought cold, fresh air would help her.
Maybe just give you pneumonia instead. Still undeterred, he moved from there to New York City, and really wanted to make a splash there. And as soon as he got there, he reported in the New York Sun that somebody had just crossed the ocean in a hot air balloon. Everybody rushed out to buy the papers and learn all about it. Turns out the whole thing was fake.
He played a hoax on everybody, but it got him noticed.
So Poe was getting popular. His stories were getting read, but he still wanted to be recognized as a poet. And he worked for months and months on this perfect poem. This is going to be a good hundred-line poem, much longer than a lot of the other things he'd written. And he finally got the nerve to send to a publisher, to Graham's Magazine.
He used to work for Graham's Magazine. The editor, the owner of the magazine, loved him. And they wouldn't publish it. And they took another magazine, rejected, and at one magazine, they passed around the room and read it. And they felt so sorry for him that they passed around a hat to collect donations.
This, well, we can't buy his poem because it's awful, but at least we'll give him, you know, a few bucks to get some food. And people were saying. This poem doesn't make any sense. Why is a guy talking to a bird that obviously only knows how to say one word? Why would you keep asking it questions if it's only going to give the same word answer?
Especially if you don't want that answer. Like, tell the soul sorrow laden is within the distant Aiden that shall clasps the sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Why would you ask the raven if you're ever going to be reunited with your beloved Lenore? If you know it's going to tell you never more, doesn't make any sense. But the guy's torturing himself.
He's he's driving himself to do this. This guy is really picking at a scab. He knows these. He longs for Lenore.
So why would he keep asking the Raven to say never more to remind him that he can never see her again? And finally, he got it published. He didn't get it published in literary magazine. It got it published. In a political journal for the Whig Party called the American Review, and they paid him the space rates of the day, about fifteen dollars, which about three hundred fifty dollars in today's money, so not great, but it's filler material, and he didn't even put his name on it.
He said the one person was so bad he didn't want to ruin his reputation by putting his name on it, so it's signed the pseudonym Quarles. And as soon as it got in print, another magazine saw it, and the editor reprinted it without paying him. But at least they printed it under his name, and they added an introduction that said, "This will stick to the memory of everyone who ever reads it." And today we know that's true because you can't hear the word never more without thinking of Edgar Allan Poe and the Raven.
So that's the one that made him a huge superstar, and he was able to travel the country, giving performances of it.
So finally achieved that stardom, but this is also when his wife was dying, and and she encouraged him to move to the country. They thought the fresh country air would help him, so they moved to a tiny cottage in the Bronx. The Bronx used to be the countryside, about 15 miles outside New York City, and that's where she died at the age of 24. He only survived another two years, and he spent a lot of that traveling. But finally, at the end of his life, he was back in Richmond, and he was lecturing at the Exchange Hotel, the biggest hotel in town.
You know, spending time with his sister, catching up with old friends, and he happened to hear that his old girlfriend Elmira was single now.
So he started showing up at her house, and the first time he showed up. Just out of the blue, but he kept coming back and coming back until she accepted him, and he convinced her that they should be married. After all those years, and he got her a nice gold engagement ring, got her a gold locket with some of his hair inside of it. But she agreed to marry him, and she wrote a letter to his aunt. Remember, his biological father's sister or his mother-in-law.
She's still up in the cottage in the Bronx while Poe's traveling. And Elmira said, "I never really stopped loving Edgar." And Elmira also wrote to Muddy that I look forward to calling you mother and to welcoming you into my home.
So she was going to take Poe's mother-in-law in with her.
So imagine having your husband's first wife's mother living with you, but she was going to bring her into the house along with her son. Her son was about ten years old. Her daughter was a teenager, so she'd already married and move out the house by then. But It was going to be probably a full house, and Edgar would have to go back to the Bronx. He was going to go as far as New York and pick up his mother-in-law and bring her back here for the wedding.
So he caught the early morning steamship. He was very sick, and Elmyer said he had a fever and a weak pulse and was kind of dizzy. She said you shouldn't travel; stay here a few more days, even visit a doctor. And the doctor said, you know, if you travel, be the death of you. We don't know exactly what was wrong with Poe, but He made as far as Baltimore.
The steamship would have taken him from here to Norfolk to Baltimore, and then he would cut a train to Philadelphia. And he disappeared for five days. When they found him, he was still in Baltimore. Then, but they took him to the hospital, where he was in and out of consciousness for four days, delirious, talking to shadows in the wall, not making any sense. But he kept saying, "I have a wife back in Richmond.
I have to get back to my wife." But he died ten days before he could marry Elmira. Ten days before he had a happy ending, and the only clue he gave us was he screamed the name Reynolds over and over again in his very last night. Then he calmed down, and his last words were, "Lord, help my poor soul," and he died at the age of forty. The doctor said his case of enitis or inflammation of the brain, which kind of a catch-all, which could mean meningitis, but could mean other things. And he was buried up there in Baltimore.
Tend to bury you where you died. This unmarked grave, as soon overgrown with weeds, but people kept coming to see the grave. They kept wanting to see it, and the sexton finally put a rock on there so he'd know where the grave was, so he could show people. Oh, that's where he's buried right there. And it was twenty-six years after he died.
Teachers and students who loved reading Poe's works really got behind this idea of putting a monument on Poe's grave, and they got him the nicest monument in the whole cemetery, too big for the spot where he was. In fact, so they decided to put the monument in a place of honor, right next to cemetery gates, so right under the sidewalk, so you wouldn't even have to break into the cemetery to see it. It would be right there, as a face on the front, this big, huge thing.
So after all these years, it was the kids who loved reading Poe's works. And the teachers who loved teaching Poe's works and sharing them, they got behind the idea of building him a monument for his grave. And even if it was in a different spot, they actually had to dig him up and move him across the cemetery to go to the to the new spot. And so that's where he is today. And he's been memorialized by teachers and artists and writers ever since.
Arthur Conan Doyle.
So there really wasn't much original you could do after Poe. That he invented the detective story. He said, "Where was the detective story before?" Poe breathed the breath of life into it. He established the genre, the characters, the different plot devices. He did a whole series of these detective stories, and Jules Verne called him the leader of the cult of the bizarre.
That How was first American writer really make a huge impact around the world? Not just to be popular overseas, like say Washington Irving, but actually to be influential overseas, to actually change the way other writers thought about their art. The Goldbug, and it's about an eccentric entomologist named Lagrand. Lagrand says he's got a drawing, but he doesn't have the drawing. Turns out he holds a piece of parchment over a flame and reveals there's invisible ink.
There's a whole encoded message that gives him the series of clues he has to follow to find Captain Kidd's treasure. It's basically it's the plot of the Goonies, also National Treasure, Da Vinci Code. They all have their origins in this story. H.P. Lovecraft wrote a whole book about the history of weird fiction.
Though it's a whole chapter to Poe. Other people have to share chapters, but Poe gets his own chapter. There was a film director, Alfred Hitchcock, who said that it's because I liked reading Poe's work so much that I started to make suspense films. Everyone should come to the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Richmond, because where else are you going to see Poe's socks or his hair or the Poe Museum cats? A terrific job on the editing and storytelling by Shad Straley and Robbie Davis.
And a special thanks to Chris Semptner, curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond. Go to poemuseum dot org. And by the way, the story of how the Raven got shopped around and rejected everywhere is the story of art. But the persistence of Poe, the perseverance of Poe against all odds to stick with it, and that he creates these new genres so much so that legends like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Hitchcock in England. Are affected, and these are masters of their domain.
The story of Edgar Allan Poe, an American classic, here on our American stories. If you're ready to feel confident again, visit orderlymeds.com to learn about which GLP-1 you may be eligible for. Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Gain confidence, choose healthy habits this fall. Check it out for yourself.
Go to orderlymeds.com. That's orderlymeds.com. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed professional.
Individual results may vary. See website for details. Power Slab Twenty Four arrives in Las Vegas on Friday, October ninth, at the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan. If you've never been to a Power Slap event, now is your chance to see one of the most exciting live sporting events on the planet. Power Slap tickets in Las Vegas start at sixty dollars and can be purchased on Ticketmaster or Powerslap.com.
That's Friday, October ninth, in Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan. Tickets are on sale now. Don't miss out on this one-of-a-kind live event. Deciding on what to listen to is hard. Using Zumo to stream music from iHeart Nineties Radio is easy.
Or play iHeart Country Classics Radio or Hip Hop Beats—your choice, all for free. Stream easy with Zumo Play. Get live and on-demand entertainment with no logins, no signups, no accounts, no hassle. Get cozy on the couch and binge your favorite movies, like Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. All streaming free on Zumo Play.
Go to play.zumo.com now. Life is hard. Zumo is easy. Upgrade to Elite Checking from America's Christian Credit Union and earn up to 3.5% APY, plus everyday perks and access to your paycheck up to two days early with Early Pay. Don't settle.
Choose checking that rewards you and aligns with your values. Visit America'sChristianCU.com/ihart. Minimum balance of one cent required to earn advertised APY. Early pay not guaranteed. APY equals annual percentage yield.
Membership eligibility. Ability required, and see you. Way insured.
Some people use ChatGPT to answer questions. Others use it to get real work done. With ChatGPT Work, you bring the goal, plus real inputs like briefs, notes, files, feedback, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, prototype, or workflow you can review and keep shaping. You stay in control, giving direction and choosing the final output.
Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by. Selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.
