New Exhibit Explores Mental Illness in Poe’s Life and Work

The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether

True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
~ Edgar Allan Poe, ”The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843

“I am constitutionally sensitive — nervous in a very unusual degree.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe, Letter to George W. Eveleth, January 4, 1848

In stories like “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe explores the mind’s descent into insanity with such vivid realism that they have lost none of their power after over 170 years. Generations of readers have confused the author Edgar Allan Poe with the mentally ill narrators of his famous stories “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Berenice,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” While the real Poe bears no resemblance to these characters, the fact that so many people have been fooled is evidence of Poe’s research and the realism of his writing. The Poe Museum’s new exhibit, Madness: Insanity in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe, will uncover the truth about mental illness in Poe’s life and work.

Tranquilizer Chair

Visit this exhibit to discover the identities of the real murderer upon whom Poe based the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and the possible inspirations for Madeline and Roderick Usher from “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Then find out what doctors in Poe’s time knew about mental illness and how to treat it. Find the truth behind Poe’s stories of madness and murder in the Poe Museum’s new exhibit Madness: Insanity in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe opening July 23 from 6-9 p.m. with a special Unhappy Hour devoted to Poe’s tale “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.” The exhibit continues until September 20, 2015.

“The Fall of the House of Usher”