Edgar Allan Poe Stamp: for Now, Not Nevermore

Revered Poet, Father of Mystery Novel, commemorated on 200th Birthday

RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The father of the "mystery
novel," and one of America's most extraordinary poets and fiction writers was
immortalized on postage today when the U.S. Postal Service celebrated the
200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. The stamp honoring Poe was
dedicated at the Library of Virginia in Richmond where several dignitaries --
including Poe's distant cousin -- spoke of his accomplishments. The 42-cent
First-Class commemorative stamp is available nationwide today.

"It is ironic that a man who faced loneliness, poverty and despair throughout
much of his life, should be so richly loved by so many so long after his
death," said U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors member Katherine C. Tobin
in dedicating the stamp. "He invented the detective story and elevated
literary criticism to an art form. Poetry, however, was his self-declared
passion. His works are found, or referenced in seemingly every form of art --
in plays, movies, musicals, operas, symphonies, recordings, comics, cartoons,
television, sculpture, paintings and more. From Alfred Hitchcock to Bart
Simpson to The Beatles -- who placed Poe center stage on the cover of their
Sgt. Pepper album -- the legendary writer, poet and literary critic has
captured the public imagination as few, if any, have ever done."

For more than a century and a half, Poe and his works have been praised by
admirers around the world, including English Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, who dubbed Poe "the literary glory of America." British author Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle called him "the supreme original short story writer of all
time."

Joining Tobin in dedicating the stamp were Dr. Harry Lee Poe, president of the
Poe Museum of Richmond, whose great, great grandfather was Poe's cousin;
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Dana Gioia; and portrait artist
Michael J. Deas, who in addition to being the artist of the Edgar Allen Poe
stamp, is also a leading authority on portraits and daguerreotypes of Poe.

"Poe was called mad throughout the 19th century because he proposed the
original big bang theory, since everyone believed that time and space were
different, and that the infinite universe had always existed," said Poe's
cousin, Dr. Harry Lee Poe, a theologian who serves as Charles Colson Professor
of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson, TN. "One hundred sixty
years after the publication of Eureka, we take Poe's cosmology for granted. He
was not correct about all the details, but his essay demonstrates that he was
correct about the value of imagination for science, faith and every other
field of human endeavor.

While Poe was slandered and libeled in America before his bones lay cold in
his grave," he continued, "the French adopted Poe as their own almost
immediately as did the Russians. Jules Verne, Charles Baudelaire, Claude
Debussy, and the Impressionists all took their inspiration from Poe.
Dostoyevsky was inspired by Poe's psychological tales and Rachmaninoff set
'The Bells' to music. Belgian scientist Lemaitre, who formally proposed the
Big Bang theory in the 20th century, was devoted to Poe. Alfred Hitchcock
sought to achieve in film what Poe achieved through prose."

NEA Chairman Gioia said, "It's time to say the obvious. No author stays
internationally popular for 150 years by accident. Poe is one of the classic
authors of American literature -- a master of the short story, a magician of
the short poem, and a critic of brilliance and originality. And no small part
of his artistic magic is that he appeals to readers from childhood to old age.
Let us underestimate him nevermore!"

Edgar Allan Poe Stamp Image
The stamp portrait of Edgar Allan Poe is by award-winning artist Deas, whose
research over the years has made him well acquainted with Poe's appearance. In
1989, Deas published "The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe," a
comprehensive collection of images featuring authentic likenesses as well as
derivative portraits.

The portrait for the stamp was done in oils on a wooden panel. The selvage art
is by Edmund Dulac (1882-1953), a French-born British illustrator whose works
have appeared in such classics as "The Arabian Nights" (1907), "The Tempest"
(1908), and "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" (1909). The selvage illustration is
from "The Bells and Other Poems" (1912). The quotation on the stamp sheet is
from Poe's most famous poem, "The Raven," first published in 1845.

The event took place as a partnership with the Poe Museum www.poemuseum.org,
the St. John's Church www.historicstjohnschurch.org and the Library of
Virginia www.lva.lib.va.us.

Philatelic Products
There are five philatelic products available for this stamp issue:

464473, Limited Edition, Raven Book w/block of 4 stamps, $12.95
One of Poe's best-loved poems "The Raven," was first published in 1845. In
this special commemorative booklet edition, French artist Emmanuel Polanco
graphically interprets "The Raven" in six original illustrations. The booklet
also includes commentary by stamp artist Michael J. Deas and a block of four
Edgar Allan Poe stamps with mount.
464465, Digital Color Postmark First-Day Cover, $1.50
464461, First-Day Cover, $0.80
464491, Ceremony Program, $6.95
464499, Digital Color Postmark Keepsake w/full pane, $9.90

How to Order the First-Day-of-Issue Postmark
Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They
may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office, or at the Postal Store Web
site at www.usps.com/shop or by calling 800-STAMP-24. They should affix the
stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes, to themselves or
others, and place them in a larger envelope addressed to:

Edgar Allan Poe Stamp
Postmaster
Attn: Customer Relations Coordinator
1801 Brook Rd.
Richmond, VA 23232-9993

After applying the first-day-of issue postmark, the Postal Service will return
the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All
orders must be postmarked by March 17, 2009.

How to Order First-Day Covers
Stamp Fulfillment Services also offers first-day covers for new stamp issues
and Postal Service stationery items postmarked with the official
first-day-of-issue cancellation. Each item has an individual catalog number
and is offered in the quarterly USA Philatelic catalog. Customers may request
a free catalog by calling 800-STAMP-24 or writing to:

Information Fulfillment
Dept. 6270
U.S. Postal Service
P.O. Box 219014
Kansas City, MO 64121-9014

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Edgar Allan Poe Background

Edgar Allan Poe was born "Edgar Poe" on Jan. 19, 1809, in Boston, MA. He lost
both of his parents, actors David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, before his
third birthday. His father disappeared and his mother died. Many years later,
Poe would share his feelings about the early loss of his parents in a letter
to a man who had known his mother, "I have many occasional dealings with
Adversity," he wrote, "but the want of parental affection has been the
heaviest of my trials." Poe grew up in the care of John and Frances Allan,
wealthy residents of Richmond, VA (where Poe's mother had died in Dec. 1811),
and though the Allans shared their name with Poe, they never formally adopted
him.

In his youth, Poe received an excellent education at private schools in
England and Virginia. He is known to have written poems about some of his
Virginia classmates in the early 1820s, but those verses have apparently been
lost. His earliest surviving poetic work, penned in 1823 or 1824, consists of
just two lines--"Last night, with many cares and toils oppress'd, / Weary, I
laid me on a couch to rest--" and is simply titled "Poetry."

In 1826, Poe enrolled at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He did
well in ancient and modern languages but had to withdraw after only one term.
Deeply in debt, largely from gambling losses, he appealed to his foster father
for additional financial help and was refused.

Poe left Virginia and over the next several years lived in various places
along the East Coast, struggling to get by and to get his writings into print.
He found publishers for Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), Al Aaraaf,
Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829), and Poems (1831), yet made very little
money. During that period, he survived with the help of paternal relatives in
Baltimore, MD, and by joining the U.S. Army. He even managed to obtain an
appointment to the U.S. Army Military Academy at West Point. He was admitted
in 1830 but was dismissed in early 1831 for "gross neglect of duty" and
"disobedience of orders."

In October 1833, Poe's fortunes took a turn for the better when he won a
short-story contest sponsored by a Baltimore newspaper. His "MS. Found in a
Bottle" brought him $50 in prize money and greatly improved his job prospects.
He accepted a job as editor for the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond in
1835 and, soon after, married Virginia Clemm of Baltimore. At the Messenger,
Poe published many of his own works and added "literary critic" to his resume.
But his reviews of other authors' works, while often commended for their
astuteness, occasionally took a caustic tone and made him more than a few
enemies. He left Richmond in 1837.

From 1838 to 1844, Poe, his devoted wife, and his supportive mother-in-law
resided in Philadelphia. While there, he took an editorial position with
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (Graham's Magazine, as of 1841) and continued
writing reviews, poetry, and fiction. A masterful storyteller with a vivid
imagination, he published some of his most terrifying tales during this
period. These include "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the
House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."

In April 1841, Graham's printed Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," which
introduced the fictional character C. Auguste Dupin. The analytical talents of
this Parisian investigator were later featured again in "The Mystery of Marie
Rogêt" and "The Purloined Letter." Poe's Dupin stories would inspire a host of
mystery writers, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the famous
detective Sherlock Holmes. In the early 1900s, Doyle wrote of Poe's influence,
"To him must be ascribed the monstrous progeny of writers on the detection of
crime.... Each may find some little development of his own, but his main art
must trace back to those admirable stories of Monsieur Dupin, so wonderful in
their masterful force, their reticence, their quick dramatic point.... But not
only is Poe the originator of the detective story; all treasure-hunting,
cryptogram-solving yarns trace back to his 'Gold Bug'...."

"The Gold-Bug" won a $100 prize for Poe in 1843. He set the story on
Sullivan's Island, SC, an area he knew well from having served there in the
Army. That same year, he also published Prose Romances and began a popular
lecture series on poetry, or "the rhythmical creation of beauty," as defined
by Poe. Often described as a lyric poet, he composed verse that was rich in
allusion and atmosphere, with a rhythmical style suggestive of song -- hence
the memorable meter of "The Raven." Poe published "The Raven" in 1845 in New
York, where he and his family had moved the previous year. The poem made him a
star of literary society, and yet his income, which continued to come mostly
from work on periodicals, was never more than barely adequate.

On Jan. 30, 1847, Poe's wife died of tuberculosis, leaving him despondent. His
own health was precarious, and his financial situation was grim. Still, he had
hopes of getting back on his feet by starting his own magazine or eventually
marrying again -- but to no avail. On Oct. 3, 1849, Poe was found "in great
distress" and "in need of immediate assistance" in Baltimore. He was taken by
carriage to a hospital, where he died from "congestion of the brain" on Oct.
7. He was laid to rest in Baltimore's Westminster Burying Ground.

Poe left behind a literary legacy that includes the following well-known tales
(in addition to the previously named works): "The Masque of the Red Death,"
"William Wilson," and "The Cask of Amontillado." Poems include "To Helen,"
"Lenore," "Ulalume," "Eldorado," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells." He also wrote
a novel titled "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym."

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service

Cathy Boule, (O) +1-804-775-6357, (C) +1-804-212-4114, cathy.a.boule@usps.gov;
or Mark Saunders, (O) +1-202-268-6524, (C) +1-202-320-0782,
mark.r.saunders@usps.gov