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A Toast to Poe.(19th-century American writer Edgar Allan Poe)

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From: World and I
Date: 19991001
Author:Connery, William

Sometime before dawn, a stranger creeps into the brick-walled graveyard of Baltimore's Westminster Church. At the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, the black-clad figure kneels and bows his head as if in prayer, and then sets a bottle of Martell cognac in front of the gravestone, accompanied by three red roses. Since January 19, 1949, the 100th anniversary of Poe's death, the stranger has come each year between midnight and 5:00 a.m. to toast the author.

But this past January, on the 190th anniversary of Poe's birth, the ritual took a turn worthy of Poe himself. Ten witnesses, taking ...

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