{"id":3018,"date":"2009-01-29T11:42:06","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T16:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2009-01-29T16:01:45","modified_gmt":"2009-01-29T21:01:45","slug":"man-of-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/man-of-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Man of Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"19th-century man of mystery, pre-tonsorial adjustment\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/eap_samuelsosgood_c1845.jpg?resize=249%2C379&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"379\" \/>Recognize the handsome guy at left? Neither did I.<\/p>\n<p>Then I read <em>Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories<\/em>, by Harry Lee Poe (a distant cousin of its subject). Turns out that this painting, by <a title=\"Wikipedia, on Samuel Stillman Osgood\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samuel_Stillman_Osgood\" target=\"_blank\">Samuel Stillman Osgood<\/a>, was rendered in about 1845 &#8212; four years before EAP&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>Right: he had no mustache at all until the last year or so of his life.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly for understanding him, he didn&#8217;t <em>always<\/em> look so troubled, so twisted up inside, so &#8220;Don&#8217;t talk to me &#8212; I&#8217;m ready to implode&#8221; as he did in the familiar pictures and <a title=\"Wikipedia: 'the' classic Poe look\" href=\"Whttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Edgar_Allan_Poe_2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">daguerreotypes<\/a> of his last years.<\/p>\n<p>My review of the <em>Illustrated Companion<\/em> is (finally!) done, and <a title=\"Review of 'Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories'\" href=\"http:\/\/thebookbook.blogspot.com\/2009\/01\/edgar-allan-poe-illustrated-companion.html\" target=\"_blank\">posted at <em>The Book Book<\/em> blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8212; four years before EAP&#8217;s death. Right: he had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,36,266,324],"tags":[265,678,935,936],"class_list":{"0":"post-3018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-06_writing","7":"category-reading","8":"category-book-reviews-writing_cat","9":"category-researchresources","10":"tag-the-book-book","11":"tag-edgar-allan-poe","12":"tag-illustrated-companion","13":"tag-harry-lee-poe","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-MG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3018"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3025,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3018\/revisions\/3025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}