Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum

The Edgar Allan Poe House is a small rowhouse in west Baltimore where Poe lived from 1833 to 1835. The house is authentically tiny — three rooms on three floors — and has been preserved and interpreted as a historic house museum. It is a fitting monument to a writer whose work was defined by confinement, darkness, and the oppressive weight of small spaces.

The museum inside covers Poe's Baltimore years and his wider life and work. He is buried nearby at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground at Fayette and Greene Streets — the grave is accessible and frequently visited. The neighbourhood around the Poe House has seen better days, which paradoxically adds to the atmosphere. Worth making the effort to find.

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A story
Poe moved to Baltimore in 1831 to live with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia, whom he later married when she was 13 years old. He lived in this tiny house for five years, during which he produced some of his most important early work. He died in Baltimore in 1849 under mysterious circumstances — found delirious on the street, he died four days later without ever being able to explain what had happened to him in the preceding five days.

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