Poe’s Poems Fetch Big Bucks at Auction

Posted on Dec 4, 2009

Flickr / kevindooley

Edgar Allan Poe may have died penniless, but his poems are now worth a heap of money—$662,500, to be exact. On Friday, an unidentified bidder at a Christie’s auction in New York paid just that much for a first-edition collection of poems by the master of the macabre, titled “Tamerlane and Other Poems” and printed under the vague pseudonym of “A Bostonian.”  —KA

ABC News:

The 40-page “Tamerlane and Other Poems” was inspired by the work of British poet Lord Byron, and the title poem is about an historical conqueror who laments the loss of his first love.

The book, which has been stained and frayed with the decades, came from the library of William E. Self, a television and film producer.

Read more

Comments

Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig.