On Thursday, September 27, 1849, author Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond, Virginia by boat, heading for his home in New York. Poe never reached his destination. After visiting a friend in Baltimore on September 28, Poe disappeared and was not heard from again until October 3, when a friend received word that Poe was in "great distress" at a local tavern. This friend, Dr. J. E. Snodgrass, found Poe in a sorry condition, as Wolf Mankowitz reported in The Extraordinary Mr. Poe: "His face was haggard, not to say bloated, and unwashed, his hair unkempt and his whole physique repulsive." It was clear that Poe had been on an extended alcoholic binge. Poe was taken to a hospital and, hallucinating, he begged his friends "to blow out his miserable brains with a pistol." Nearing death, he muttered about his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which ended with these lines: "And...