Readers’ Travel Post # 1: The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Photo Courtesy of the Lonely Planet. For more photos and information on the Poe Museum, see https://www.poemuseum.org .
See The Washington Post article “Edgar Allan Poe Museum marks 100 years celebrating master of the macabre” by Andrea Sachs for information on the 100th anniversary of the Richmond museum’s 100th anniversary in April 2022. The article provides a good overview of the museum and its holdings. There are approximately 4,000 artifacts in the Poe Museum and three themed buildings: the Old Stone House for childhood, the Elizabeth Arnold Poe Memorial Building which houses career artifacts, and the North Building which focuses on his untimely death. The Enchanted Garden is also a focal point of the Museum, as is the gift shop.
For an entertaining virtual tour of the Poe Museum and a brief summary of his work, see Scrapple TV’s seven minute YouTube Video of the Poe House, which is narrated by Chris Semtner, the Poe Museum Curator. For a look at Poe’s time in Richmond, read Christopher P. Semtner’s “The Raven in the River City” (Arcadia Publishing). The book is full of anecdotes about Poe’s times in Richmond and how they influenced him as a writer.
For links to Poe’s works, you can click on the following to get started:
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe and The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Readers’ Travel Post Number 2, The Nantucket Whaling Museum. See our fiction section for both the Google Books version and the Project Gutenberg version of “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville.
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.
The Folger Shakespeare Library.
This is the preeminent Shakespeare facility in the world with the largest collection of Shakespeare’s works, including 82 copies of the First Folio.
The facility is currently closed due to a major renovation. Programs are being hosted online.
Events can be accessed HERE. Join HERE.
In addition to the library, the facility features theatres and gardens.
Take a brief Virtual Tour of the Nantucket Whaling Museum.
The Nantucket Whaling Museum
The Nantucket Whaling Museum is located in Nantucket, Maine. Nantucket is a small island off the coast of Maine, which is accessible by ferry and small plane. The museum is now open subject to safety protocols consistent with CDC guidelines.
One of the featured exhibits of the museum is “The Tragedy of the Essex” which tells the story of an enraged sperm whale which struck and sunk the whaler, Essex.
The story served, in part, as the inspiration for Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” which is a featured novel in the fiction section of You Read It Here.
The Nantucket Book Festival (already past for 2021) is scheduled for June of 2022; look for more information in the future.
The Jane Austen House
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This is the official website of the Jane Austen House.
The Jane Austen House is currently closed.
A virtual tour of the house is being offered on May 15th.
When the Covid pandemic calms down, groups such as the Jane Austen Society of North America will again host real live tours. For now, visit their web site for virtual events. For a sense of what things will be like when life returns to normal, see the Aug. 3, 2017 New York Times article by Sarah Lyall “Where Jane Austen Danced, Dined or Dallied“.
Even Jane Austen has not been untouched by the “woke” however. An April 27, 2021 article by Jenny Gross in the New York Times titled “A Jane Austen Museum Wants to Discuss Slavery. Will Her Fans Listen?” According to the article Jane Austen fans (also known as “Janeites”) long to isolate Austen from modernity. Others offer passages that suggest that Austen was an abolitionist, as were her favorite authors.
