Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was a Boston-born American writer, editor, poet, and literary critic credited with pioneering the short story genre, inventing detective fiction, and contributing to the development of science fiction. Known primarily for his haunting poetry and short stories, Poe continues to stand as a central figure of Romanticism in American literature. He died in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances. Nathan Wolff is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department at Tufts University. He is the author of Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age (Oxford University Press, 2019), which provides a literary prehistory of today's emotional politics: the cynicism and exhaustion of democratic life in an age of inequality and corruption. His writing has appeared in American Literary History, English Literary History, J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies , and The Washington Post . Joseph Rezek received his PhD in English from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his B. A.

from Columbia University. His area of expertise is British and American literature from 1750 to 1850, and his research focuses on early Black Atlantic literature, transatlantic studies, and the history of race and racism. He teaches at Boston University.