Edgar Allan Poe‘s 1849 obituary, as it appeared in the Baltimore Sun: DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE — We regret to learn that Edgar A. Poe, Esq., the distinguished American poet, scholar and critic, died in this city yesterday morning, after an illness of four or five days. This announcement, coming so sudden and unexpected, [...]

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The novelist William Hoffman died September 13. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: With 14 critically acclaimed novels and four short-story collections to his credit, author Henry William Hoffman should have been a literary giant, his fans said, but he never found mass-market fame. “Bill Hoffman was probably Virginia’s least-known best writer—an author recognized by his peers [...]

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Tony Field, producer of the VFH radio program BackStory, reminds us that the show’s new episode on health care will air tonight: BackStory‘s latest episode, “Body Politics: A History of Health Care,” will be airing this evening in Central Virginia. It’s a strong show, with obvious relevance to the current debate in Washington. Features include [...]

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Donna M. Lucey is Encyclopedia Virginia‘s new media editor, and she has a wonderful piece on the Smithsonian website right now. Called “Robert Morrison’s Montana,” it presents and annotates a funny, creepy, haunting, sad, and often insightful group of photographs from late-nineteenth-century Montana. They are the work of Robert C. Morrison, who came to Montana [...]

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Speaking of anniversaries, we’re four days away from October 16, the 150th anniversary of John Brown‘s raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. The West Virginia Archives & History has a new online presentation on the man and his famous attempt to start a slave rebellion. As anyone who has read about the raid [...]

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Last week, on October 7, was the 160th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe‘s death. Meanwhile, the critic Allen Barra wonders if Poe really matters anymore: Though he is still widely praised by most critics and his work still included in many anthologies, Poe may be fading into that twilight realm, indeed as he was as [...]

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Supreme Court Justices are dashing off cheap novels in the guise of opinions. Chief Justice John Roberts, for instance, channels Sam Spade in a recent dissent: North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Undercover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three-dollar steak. To which Terry Teachout [...]

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