Recognize the handsome guy at left? Neither did I.

Then I read Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories, by Harry Lee Poe (a distant cousin of its subject). Turns out that this painting, by Samuel Stillman Osgood, was rendered in about 1845 — four years before EAP’s death.

Right: he had no mustache at all until the last year or so of his life.

More importantly for understanding him, he didn’t always look so troubled, so twisted up inside, so “Don’t talk to me — I’m ready to implode” as he did in the familiar pictures and daguerreotypes of his last years.

My review of the Illustrated Companion is (finally!) done, and posted at The Book Book blog.