Poe’s life, like his fiction, was often unhappy, melodramatic, obscure and downright mysterious. The circumstances of his death provide a perfect illustration of this curious correspondence between life and art.
In 1849, Poe left Richmond, Virginia, and vanished. A week later he reappeared in a Baltimore tavern. He was distraught and very ill. He had lost his money and he was wearing cheap, dirty clothes which did not belong to him. Taken to hospital, he died raving four days later. According to the most reliable account available, he called repeatedly on a man named Reynolds, who has never been otherwise identified, and told his physician that the best thing a friend could do for him (Poe) was to blow out his brains with a pistol.
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