Topix Underground

".."Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."
The Raven

American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe died #OTD in 1849.

Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction.."

So, I'm reading the wiki bio of Poe and apparently someone edited the article.  Read:

"Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for death from disreputable causes such as alcoholism.[77] The actual cause of death remains a mystery.[78] Speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation,[5] cholera,[79] carbon monoxide poisoning,[80] and rabies.[81] One theory dating from 1872 suggests that Poe's death resulted from cooping, a form of electoral fraud in which citizens were forced to vote for a particular candidate, sometimes leading to violence and even murder.[82]"