Poe-phenalia

September 28, 2011 — It boggles my mind that there exists a market for mass-produced merchandise based on the life of an alcoholic, depressed, poverty-stricken, death-obsessed author who lived a century and a half ago. If Edgar Allan Poe had only known that we’d commodity his spooky rep more than treasure his actual work he might, well, cash in on it and drink himself into a stupor, I guess. Some people are just doomed.

And I’m not just talking about the odd gag gift for your English Major friend (or manservant…times are tough for us). There’s everything from dishware to dolls to clothing to sex toys…the complete merchandise spectrum. If it can be made in a factory, it can have a raven and a moustache stamped onto it.

I own four different versions of Poe's
collected works. Every once in a while
somebody gives me another as a gift,
and I'm way okay with that.

Since I’m way into both Poe’s work and the idea of collecting things in general, it has always been extremely tempting for me to start collecting it, but I haven’t. I least, I didn’t think I had. Looking around my study recently, though, I noticed quite a bit of Poe stuff that I apparently accidentally accumulated. I guess that’s a testament to how much of it is out there.

So I rounded up all that I could find, took pics in one of the strangest photo shoots I’ve done in a while, and then posted what I’ve got below. It’s not an impressive collection, but it still surprised me.

And, now that I’ve showed you mine, you need to show me yours. After all, I’m sure you have much cooler Poe-phenalia hanging off the busts of Pallas above your chamber doors. So email it to me, post it on the O.T.I.S. Facebook page, walk it to my front door. I want to know what's out there.

Oh, and stop Googling “Edgar Allan Poe sex toys.” It was just a [discreetly Googles “Edgar Allan Poe sex toys” in Chrome’s incognito mode] joke.

Remember when The Simpson's
Treehouse of Horror was actually
about horror?

Don't hold on to many magazines,
but made an exception for this
October 2009 issue of Rue Morgue.

From the 1963 film, The Raven.

Honestly? The best one out of all these
Poe movie adaptations is the 1970
An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe, in which
Vincent Price merely stares into the camera
and recites a few of Poe's stories.

Not technically Poe memorabilia, but I can't have a study
without a fake raven perched somewhere therein. Haven't
sprung for a bust of Pallas yet, though.

If collecting Living Dead Dolls is a
hobby of yours, you scare me, but I
couldn't pass this one up.

A gift from some friends. I don't even have pictures of my
family up in my study.

Paper bag from the Poe Museum in
Richmond, VA. Couldn't bear to
throw it away.

A ceramic dish, perfect for eating candy corn off of during
my late-night writing sessions for this Halloween blog.

CafePress.com alone has 925 different Poe T-shirt designs.

Although it's not pictured, you can see me wearing my
favorite Poe T-shirt (and just T-shirt in general ) here.

What Poe would look like as a muppet,
I guess. You can't really see them in
this picture, but there's a raven sewn
to his shoulder and a black cat sewn
to his leg.

Now...show me what you got.