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Bernice

The Dead Bride Stories Part II

By Gayle Turner

This edition of the Storytellers Channel’s newsletter features Chris Semtner, Curator, The Poe Museum, writing more about Berenice, alittle about the other dead Brides Morella and Ligeia and highlighting an artifact from the museum’s collection.
The Love Locked Down Theatre Project gave its final performance of this most recent production last week to an appreciative audience at the Police Athletic League here in Richmond. Truth was spoken to power as the teenagers and adults alike in the audience shared candid reactions to the play and the emotions it evoked.
I’d love to hear your response to The Tell-Tale Heart. Feel free to drop me a line at gayle@storytellerschannel.com with your feedback.
Enjoy,
Gayle Turner
The Storytellers Channel

Dead Brides Part II

Two years before Edgar Allan Poe published his tale of tooth obsession “Berenice,” reports of a gruesome crime were splashed across the pages of the Baltimore Visiter. Someone in that city had been caught robbing graves in order to steal the corpses’ teeth to sell to dentists.

Not long after Poe learned of the tooth robber, one of his friends bet him he could not write a story on the subject. The twenty-four-year-old Poe had already experimented with writing poetry, science fiction, comedy, and adventure; so he was up for the challenge. 

In Poe’s time, grave robbing was on the rise. Medical students needed cadavers to dissect and skeletons to study, so some schools hired resurrectionists to procure fresh bodies by any means necessary. A resurrectionist would sneak into a cemetery shortly after a burial and dig a hole down to the head of the newly buried coffin. Breaking a hole through the top of the casket, he would insert a hook or noose with which to hook the corpse’s head in order to pull it to the surface. Then it was just a matter of secreting the body to the medical school without getting caught. 

Sometimes—on very rare occasions—as the resurrectionist broke into the coffin, a piercing scream rang out from within the hole. He had stumbled upon a premature burial. 

At a time when most people died at home and were neither examined by a doctor nor embalmed before being buried in the local churchyard, there was a slight possibility that a person could be accidently buried alive. Screams emanated from fresh graves. The living emerged from crypts. Millions lived in fear that they could be buried alive. In preparation for that possibility, they purchased special coffins attached to above-ground bells the occupant could ring if he or she awoke in the grave.

In “Berenice,” Poe takes advantage of the fear of being buried alive in order to create a truly chilling tale. In his next story, “Morella,” Poe once again examines the vague boundaries between life and death. If people in his time had so much trouble distinguishing life from death that they accidentally buried their loved ones alive, how, asks Poe, do we really know where life begins and ends? Morella believes she can conquer death, and her husband fears this is true. In “Ligeia,” the title character similarly refuses to accept that life ends with the death of the body.  

“Berenice,” “Morella,” and “Ligeia” also each tell of a husband’s obsession with his dead bride and how that obsession brings them back from the grave. A Poe biographer has suggested that these stories are a response to his mother’s death when he was only two. According to this theory, Poe was so young that he never really accepted that she was gone and consequently always retained a feeling that she would return to him.

What’s Going on at Storytellers Channel

One of the services we offer at Storytellers Channel is coaching storytellers and speakers. Joan Rozmus Bowling, (you can see one of her stories on the site) Past President of the of the Virginia Chapter of the National Speakers Association recently finished  1st Place in Toastmasters Virginia District 66 International Speech Contest. Next Stop World Semi-Finals August 2018 in Chicago. She’s available to speak, drop us a line and we’ll put you in touch.
We are so PROUD!
Last issue I wrote we’d be premiering the Poe’s Dead Brides’ audio book this issue. Events have conspired to delay the release. As such we’re going to give away 25 to the first to download the audio book upon release. Keep an eye out for the announcement in your In-Box.

This Issue’s Poe Museum Artifact 

Publicity Packet for The Tomb of Ligeia
Vincent Price stars in this Roger Corman-directed adaptation of Poe’s horror tale “Ligeia.” It was the eighth and last of Roger Corman’s Poe films and the seventh to feature Price. Like most films supposedly based on Poe’s stories, The Tomb of Ligeia bears little resemblance to its inspiration. In this case, the screenwriter has included elements from “Morella,” “Ligeia,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

This packet contains ad art, articles about Poe and Price, and instructions on how to stage publicity stunts like distributing smelling salts to the audience in case anyone faints from fright or employing a doctor and nurse to stand outside the theater “with a display of shock naturalizers, such as a giant hypodermic, blood plasma etc.” to attend to anyone driven insane by terror. Apparently, Poe’s “Ligeia” retained its power to terrify audiences over 130 years after he wrote it.

For more information on Poe’s extraordinary life, visit The Poe Museum.

Filed Under: Behind the Curtain Tagged With: Bernice, Ligeia, Morella, Poe, Storytellers, Storytellers Channel, The Dead Brides

Who’s Bothered by “Bernice?”

By Gayle Turner

This edition of the Storytellers Channel’s newsletter features Chris Semtner, Curator, The Poe Museum, writing about Berenice and highlighting an artifact from the museum’s collection.
I just finished directing the Love Locked Down Theatre Project and we were just notified that the Al Jazeera Media Network is sending a crew to do a feature. I’ll keep you abreast of developments.
Enjoy,
Gayle Turner
The Storytellers Channel

Who’s Bothered by “Berenice?”

At twenty-six, Poe had three unsuccessful volumes of poetry to his credit and was trying to get noticed by submitting his short stories to writing contests. He complained, “to be appreciated, one must be read,” but he just couldn’t get his works in front of enough readers. Just when making a living from his pen seemed impossible, he got an offer from a new magazine in Richmond called The Southern Literary Messenger. Sure, the magazine was only a year old and still had only had 500 subscribers, but Poe saw its potential to finally make his name. 

The editor, Thomas Willis White, knew little about literature, but he believed the South was in desperate need of a magazine that would publish the latest works by southern authors. At the time, the country’s most popular authors lived in the big northern cities like New York and Boston. White wanted his magazine to be a showcase for the best southern literature, but barely anyone was buying it. His first editor left after a year because White could not afford to pay him. Mr. White, it seemed, had nothing to lose by publishing the work of the unknown Poe. 

To introduce himself to the Messenger’s readers, Poe sent a new story named “Berenice.” The response was immediate. The public was disgusted and outraged by this gruesome terror tale. Such tales, they thought, would warp young people’s minds and bring about the downfall of society. White was furious. Poe was delighted. 

What’s Going on at Storytellers Channel

Last year Danita Rountree approached me about directing the stage adaptation of R. Satiafa’s novel, Love Locked Down. The play, a collection of stories, explores the impact of the legal/corrections system on American society.

The production was scheduled to be presented at Pine Camp (the City of Richmond’s Cultural Arts Center). Richmond City Public Schools were scheduled to bus students in from select middle and high schools. The City was scheduled to put a new roof on Pine Camp in January and then Mother Nature stepped in and the project was postponed. Murphy had a hand in this as well and as such the crew started ripping the roof off the building the day we were scheduled to open.

Well, the folks at Rec and Parks jumped into action and reached out to the schools and this past Friday we performed at Henderson Middle School. Over the next few weeks the cast will perform in city schools. The cast is also scheduled to perform at Henrico High School, the County’s Center for the Arts; a gift from the City to Henrico County.

The last scheduled performance of this run will be at the Police Academy, for the students Police Athletic League.

Yesterday, we were contacted by the Al Jazeera Media Network. They are coming to Richmond to interview us about the show and the power of story to change the narrative.

We’ll keep you informed of developments.  

BTW, last issue I wrote I was going into the studio to record Berenice, Morella and Ligeia. The events above forced me to postpone the recording session until tomorrow morning. Next issue we’ll be premiering the Poe’s Dead Brides’ audio book.

This Issue’s Poe Museum Artifact 

“Portrait of Thomas White”

Thomas Willis White was Poe’s boss at his first job in journalism. It was White who took a chance on the young writer by hiring Poe as a contributor and editor, so it is thanks to White that Poe became a magazine writer and achieved his dream of making a living from his writing. The Poe Museum acquired a portrait of Thomas White from his great-granddaughter in 1923. For years, it was the only known portrait of Mr. White, and it appeared in books, magazine articles, and documentaries whenever he was mentioned. Imagine our surprise when we received a call from Anders Rasmussen of Austin, Texas. He had discovered a remarkably similar painting (pictured above) at an estate sale, where he bought it for just two dollars. 

Rasmussen sent his Thomas White portrait to the Poe Museum for us to compare it with our own Thomas White portrait, and it turned out his was the original. Additionally, his portrait was much better painted, and his Thomas White was thinner and younger looking than ours. We soon took down our portrait and hung Rasmussen’s in its place as a more accurate representation of how White would have looked when Poe knew him. 

As Poe explained in a letter to White, this was exactly the kind of story that would sell magazines. Poe offered to supply a new story every month and that each one would be completely unique, unlike anything anyone had ever read. White took Poe up on his offer, and the Messenger’s subscription rate soared. The magazine established a national reputation, and Poe was famous—or infamous—for his imaginative (and sometimes controversial) stories. Thanks to his first horror story, “Berenice,” Poe was well on his way to becoming the master of the tale of psychological terror. Poe followed “Berenice” with the horror stories “Morella” and “Ligeia.” Years later, Poe wrote that he considered “Ligeia” his best tale. 

When you listen to “Berenice,” see if you can guess the twist ending and why it offended so many people back in Poe’s day.

For more information on Poe’s extraordinary life, visit The Poe Museum.

Filed Under: Behind the Curtain Tagged With: Bernice, Poe, Storytellers, Storytellers Channel

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