The Poe shadow : a novel / Matthew Pearl.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Random House, 2006Edition: First editionDescription: 370 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 1400061032
- 813/.6 22
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Mystery | Fiction | F PEA | Available | 32500005128922 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The hotly anticipated novel from the author of the bestselling The Dante Club is a thrilling literary suspense novel about the still unsolved mystery of Edgar Allan Poe's death.
In 1849 Baltimore, following the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Quentin Clark discovers that Poe's final days had been marked by a series of bizarre, unanswered questions and launches his own investigation to resolve the mystery of Poe's death.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Trust the author of The Dante Club to turn in another stylish-sounding thriller, this one starring Poe fanatic Quentin Clark. Clark wants the real-life model for C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's fictional master of detection, to look into the author's suspicious death. But then someone else claims to be the actual Dupin. With a 14-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Fans of Pearl's bestselling debut, The Dante Club (2003), will eagerly embrace his second novel, a compelling thriller centered on the mysterious end of Edgar Allan Poe, who perished in Baltimore in 1849. Poe's ignominious funeral catches the notice of Quentin Clark, a young, idealistic attorney, who finds himself obsessed with rescuing Poe's reputation amid rumors that the writer died from an excess of drink. Clark's preoccupation soon becomes all-consuming, imperiling his practice and his engagement, especially after he learns that Poe's legendary master sleuth, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, was modeled after a real person. The lawyer journeys to France to track down the real Dupin, in the hopes that the detective can help him solve the puzzle of Poe's death. Pearl masterfully combines fact with fiction and presents some genuinely new historical clues that help reconstruct Poe's final days. While Clark remains a little enigmatic, the exciting plot, numerous twists and convincing period detail could help land this on bestseller lists as well. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reservedBooklist Review
The strange circumstances surrounding the death of Edgar Allan Poe, intriguing to fans and scholars alike, provide the basis for this literary historical mystery. In late 1849, Poe, traveling from his home in Virginia to Philadelphia for a lucrative editing job, went missing; however, he was found several days later, apparently drunk in a Baltimore tavern; he died after several days of delirium in a hospital and was buried unceremoniously. Press reports that Poe would be little missed so disturb Quentin Hobson Clark, a young Baltimore lawyer of independent means and a Poe admirer, that he vows to represent Poe's interests. To solve the mysterious death, Clark seeks in Paris the real-life model for Poe's fictitious detective, C. Auguste Dupin, selecting crime solver Auguste Dupont over lawyer Baron Claude Dupin. But the baron, still claiming to be Poe's model, follows Clark and Dupont to Baltimore, starting a cat-and-mouse game of detection that, because of French political implications, turns deadly. This is similar to Pearl's Dante Club (2002), which portrayed renowned authors trailing a serial killer, in its masterful blend of historical and fictional figures, meticulous research, and nineteenth-century literary style. Whether interest in Poe will make this book equally popular remains to be seen. --Michele Leber Copyright 2006 BooklistKirkus Book Review
The still-unexplained death of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) is the subject of the Cambridge, Mass., author's follow-up to his popular debut historical thriller, The Dante Club (2003). Its premise is irresistible: an investigation by young Baltimore attorney Quentin Clark into the tragic fate of his recently deceased favorite author--to whom, furthermore, Quentin had written, precipitating a friendly correspondence heightened by Clark's impassioned "commitment to represent . . . [the] interests" of the perpetually impecunious, wrathful and doubtless alcoholic genius. Refusing to believe his idol had drunk himself to death, Quentin abandons his eternally patient fiance, judgmental law partner and his career, traveling to Paris to seek the freelance problem-solver known to be the model for Poe's ratiocinative genius Auguste Dupin (solver of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," among other fictional enigmas). Quentin is repeatedly interrogated, sidetracked, physically assaulted and misled as he eventually encounters both a retired amateur sleuth (Auguste Duponte) uninterested in Poe's story and "special constable for the English" Baron Claude Dupin, who's rather too eager to prove that he is "the real Dupin." All three men journey to Baltimore, where the game of proving how Poe died (or was murdered) is afoot--or nearly so, in a sluggish narrative that staggers under the weight of Pearl's considerable (and just barely effectively dramatized) researches. Interesting use is made of Poe's stories and poems, and Pearl whets our interest with tantalizing clues (the whereabouts of the woman Poe was to have taken as his second wife; the man's last name he uttered on his deathbed; the reason he remained in Baltimore rather than completing a planned journey from Virginia to New York). A few surprises aside, however, too little of substance happens, and Pearl's virtually bloodless characters never engage our interest. A disappointing successor to Pearl's terrific first novel. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Matthew Pearl received a degree in English and American Literature from Harvard University in 1997 and a law degree from Yale Law School in 2000. He writes novels including The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, and The Last Dickens. He has also taught literature and creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College.(Bowker Author Biography)