Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond – The Raven in the River City

Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond
128 Pages
ISBN 1609496078

Acclaimed as one of America's most innovative authors and the inventor of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe and his works are celebrated around the world. Yet the true story of Poe's time in Richmond, Virginia, is every bit as strange and exciting as his fiction.

Poe spent nearly a third of his life in Richmond. It was here that he matched wits with a chess-playing robot, set the record for swimming against the current in the James River, challenged a rival editor to a duel and first revealed his talent for practical jokes. Join Christopher P. Semtner, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, as he reveals previously unpublished photographs and little-known source material to shed new light on how the mystery, madness and tragedy that Poe encountered during his Richmond years forever shaped his renowned fiction.

Christopher P. Semtner

About Christopher P. Semtner (Richmond, Virginia Author)

Christopher P. Semtner

The Curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum as well as an internationally exhibited fine artist, Christopher P. Semtner has also served as author, co-author, or editor of books on subjects including nineteenth century literature, visual art, and cryptography. He has also contributed articles to Biography.com, Resources for American Literary Studies, Crime Writers’ Chronicle, and The Edgar Allan Poe Review. Semtner is regularly interviewed for documentaries and has appeared on the BBC, Travel Channel, C-Span, CNN, PBS, and other networks. He has curated exhibits for libraries, museums, and art galleries across the country with the New York Times calling the exhibit he curated for the Library of Virginia, Poe: Man, Myth, or Monster, “provocative” and “a playful, robust exhibit.”

Semtner has seen his paintings enter numerous public and private collections including the Virginia Historical Society, the University of Maryland, and the City of Baltimore. In recent years, he has exhibited his paintings at Viktor Wynd Fine Art in London, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond.