I read that the Philadelphia Flyers have no "reason" for their name...

so I'm going to make one up

It's from Poe's "The Raven"--get it---"Flyers"/Raven?

"The Raven" wasn't published in New York until 1845 (after Poe and his family left Philadelphia) but a plaque in the house says he wrote the poem in the Philadelphia house. As I said before..everyone wants a piece of Poe.

Today I visited the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site on N. 7th Street in the North Liberties Neighborhood (or Spring Garden Neighborhood, depending who you talk to) of Philly. It is the last and only surviving house Poe lived in during his 6 years in Philadelphia, and he was very productive during this time. He had some ideas that were fruitful and others were not.

The house was built in 1842. Poe and Virginia (his young wife) and her mother Maria Clemm (or Muddy as she was known) rented the house for about a year. Muddy was said to have been a particular guardian of the house itself and the family, taking care of the cooking and cleaning, and caring for Poe and particularly Virginia, whose health started to deteriorate from tuberculosis at this time.

The inside of the house is not furnished and very bare. I am picturing the presence of the portable desk that was in the cottage in the Bronx.

Poe is said to have had his own room on the second floor so he could write at any time, and his wife and mother-in-law had bedrooms upstairs.

The following is a timeline of the projects in which Poe was involved while living in Philadelphia. Notice his successes and misses:

1. He assisted in a book project, writing a Preface and Introduction. Poe was not interested in writing books himself because he wanted readers to experience the story and maintain the mood all in one sitting.

2. He was an editor for a magazine.

3. He wrote The Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque, a collection of about 24 short stories which included "The Fall of the House of Usher."

4. He proposed an idea for literacy magazine (The Penn) but it did not come to fruition.

5.  In 1841 he was an editor for a Literary Magazine called the Graham Magazine. During his tenure the subscriber numbers went from 5,000 to 37,000. This magazine featured Poe's" The Murder in the Rue Morgue," which is considered to be the first detective story.

6. In 1842 he resigned from this position. His reason: he did not approve of "contemptible pictures, fashion plates, music, and love tales."

I guess he wouldn't have liked People magazine.

7. In 1843 he tried to obtain a government job as a clerk so he could earn a steady income while writing--he didn't get the job.

8. In 1843 his story "The Gold Bug" earned him a $100.00 prize. Not only did he get national attention, but the story was turned into play performed at the American Theater in Philadelphia.

And now here is something most Poe fans can really relate to. First, let's look at the basement....

It was here (in Philadelphia) that he was said to have written "The Black Cat," the story of hanging a cat (and hiding his dead wife) in a basement.

I sincerely hope Virginia didn't read any of his work in progress.

I guess the Park Service couldn't resist the addition of the fake-o cat.....

This is my favorite picture from the basement. While he is said to have written "The Cask of Amontillado" in New York, I like to think he had the idea here. To me, this looks like the spot of Fortunato's demise. (Read the story if you are confused or curious.)

I really enjoyed my visit to this Philadelphia house. 

(Thank you to my travel companions Ginny McCartin and Mary Lucchese.)

Each of my travel experiences has led me to understand the complexities of his life.

"The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore," Chronology of the Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Feb, 5, 2017.