Happy Birthday, Edgar Allen Poe!

Today is Edgar Allen Poe's birthday, and sadly the master of the macabre did not receive his customary roses and cognac in Baltimore this morning. The tradition, which has taken place since 1949, was broken when a visitor failed to appear with Poe's gift - he always arrived between midnight and 5:30 a.m. the morning of Poe's birthday, leaving the present on his grave. It's a story that fascinated lots of people, as the visitor's identity has never been known (though there was an apparent passing of the torch to the man's two sons when their father died in 1998).

To celebrate Poe today, read The Tell-Tale Heart, a very short story about a man who commits a murder, buries the body under the floorboards, and is haunted by the beating of the victim's heart. Cheery stuff.