Table Of ContentOn a Raven’s Wing
NEW TALES IN HONOR OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE
BY
MARY HIGGINS CLARK,
THOMAS H. COOK, JAMES W. HALL,
RUPERT HOLMES, S. J. ROZAN,
DON WINSLOW, AND
FOURTEEN OTHERS
Edited by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Contents
About Edgar Allan Poe v
About the Mystery Writers of America’s
Edgar Award ix
Introduction Stuart M. Kaminsky xi
Israfel Doug Allyn 1
The Golden Bug Michael A. Black 17
William Allan Wilson Jon L. Breen 47
The Tell-Tale Purr Mary Higgins Clark 69
Nevermore Thomas H. Cook 81
Emily’s Time Dorothy Salisbury Davis 105
The Cask of Castle Island Brendan DuBois 121
Bells James W. Hall 143
In My Ancestor’s Image Jeremiah Healy 165
The Poe Collector Edward D. Hoch 183
A Nomad of the Night Rupert Holmes 201
Rattle, Rattle, Rattle Stuart M. Kaminsky 227
Development Hell Paul Levine 245
The Deadliest Tale of All Peter Lovesey 255
— ii i —
Contents
Poe, Poe, Poe John Lutz 271
The Tell-Tale Pacemaker P. J. Parrish 289
Seeing the Moon S. J. Rozan 303
Challenger Daniel Stashower 329
Poe, Jo, and I Don Winslow 343
Rue Morgue Noir Angela Zeman 353
About the Editor
Other Books by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
— i v —
About Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), while a mainstay of literature
today and the recognized creator of the modern genres of horror
and mystery fiction, spent much of his life chasing the public and
literary acclaim he craved.
Born to David and Elizabeth Poe, young Edgar knew hard-
ship from an early age. His father abandoned the family a year
after Edgar’s birth, and his mother died of consumption one year
later. Taken in, but never legally adopted, by John and Frances
Allan, Edgar traveled with his new family to England in 1815,
then continued on alone to study in Irvine, Scotland, for a short
time. Afterward he studied in Chelsea, then a suburb of Lon-
don, until 1817. He returned to Virginia in 1820, and in 1826
he enrolled at the newly founded University of Virginia to study
languages. During his college years, he became estranged from his
foster father, claiming that John Allan didn’t send him enough
money to live on, but the reality was that Poe was losing the
money gambling.
In 1827 Edgar enlisted in the U.S. Army at age eighteen,
claiming he was twenty-two years old. It was during this time
— v—
About Edgar Allan Poe
that he began publishing his poems, including an early collection,
Tamerlane and Other Poems, printed under the byline “A Bostonian.”
He attained the rank of sergeant major of artillery and expressed a
desire to attend West Point for officer training. Once accepted to
the academy, however, he was dismissed for not attending classes
and formations.
After the death of his brother, Henry, in 1831, Edgar decided
to try making a living as an author. He was the first well-known
American to make such an attempt, but because of the lack of an
international copyright law and the economic effects of the Panic
of 1837, he was often forced to press for the monies owed him and
compelled to seek other assistance. After winning a literary prize
for his story “Manuscript Found in a Bottle,” he was hired as the
assistant editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, but he was fired
several weeks later for repeated drunkenness. This pattern of dis-
sipation would haunt Poe for the rest of his life.
After marrying his cousin Virginia Clemm in 1835, Poe re-
turned to the Messenger, where he worked for the next two years,
seeing its circulation rise from 700 to 3,500 copies. His only
full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, was
published in 1838 to wide review and acclaim, though once again
Poe received little profit from his work. The year after saw the
publication of his first short story collection, Tales of the Grotesque
and Arabesque, which received mixed reviews and sold poorly. He left
the Messenger and worked at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s
Magazine before announcing that he would start his own literary
publication, The Penn, later to be titled The Stylus. Tragically, it never
came to print.
— vi —
About Edgar Allan Poe
Virginia first showed signs of tuberculosis in 1842, and her
gradual decline over the next five years caused Edgar to drink even
more heavily. The one bright spot in this time was the publication
in 1845 of one of his most famous works, “The Raven,” which
brought him widespread acclaim; unfortunately, he was paid only
nine dollars for the poem itself.
Shortly afterward, the Poes moved to a cottage in the Fordham
section of the Bronx, New York, where Virginia died in 1847.
Increasingly unstable, Edgar tried to secure a position in govern-
ment, unsuccessfully courted the poet Sarah Helen Whitman, and
eventually returned to Richmond, Virginia, to rekindle a relation-
ship with Sarah Royster, a childhood sweetheart.
The circumstances surrounding Poe’s death remain shrouded
in mystery. Found on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland, delirious
and dressed in clothes that weren’t his, Poe was taken to Washing-
ton College Hospital, where he died on October 7, 1849. It was re-
ported that his last words were “Lord help my poor soul,” but this
cannot be proven as all records surrounding his death have been
lost. Edgar Allan Poe’s death has been attributed to various causes,
including delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, or meningeal
inflammation. He was buried in a Baltimore cemetery, where since
1949 a mysterious figure has toasted Poe on the anniversary of his
birth by leaving cognac and three roses at his headstone.
Poe was recognized primarily as a literary critic during his
lifetime, but after his death, his work became popular in Europe
owing mainly to Charles Baudelaire’s translations of his stories
and poems. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cited Poe as the creator of
the modern mystery story with his C. Auguste Dupin stories,
— vii —
About Edgar Allan Poe
saying, “Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the
breath of life into it?” Poe’s work also inspired later authors of
science fiction and fantasy, including Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
Today he is recognized as a literary master, who both created new
genres and reinvigorated old ones with a unique combination of
story and style.
— viii —
About the Mystery Writers
of America’s Edgar Award
In 1945, when the Mystery Writers of America was being formed,
the founders of the organization decided to give an award for the
best debut American mystery novel, as well as awards for the best
and worst mystery reviews of the year. Initially they were going to
call it the Edmund Wilson Memorial Award (partly in revenge
for Wilson’s disdain for the genre), but calmer heads prevailed.
Although it is unknown exactly who came up with the idea of
naming the award for “the Father of the Detective Story,” it was
an immediate success, and the “Edgar” was created.
The first Edgar Award was bestowed in 1946 on Julian Fast
for his debut novel Watchful at Night. In the more than fifty years
since, the stylized ceramic bust of the great author has become one
of the top prizes in the field of mystery fiction. The award cat-
egories have been expanded over time to include Best Novel, Best
Short Story, Best Paperback Original, Best Young Adult Novel,
Best Juvenile Novel, Best Fact Crime, Best Critical/Biographical,
Best Play, Best Television Episode, and Best Motion Picture, in
addition to the original Best First Novel. The Edgar has been won
— i x —
