Edgar Allan Poe’s “Toaster” No Show – Third Year In A Row

As the third year passed without the appearance of the "Poe Toaster", fans of the writer Edgar Allan Poe have now officially called an end to the tradition.

Poe House and Museum Curator Jeff Jerome said early Thursday that die-hard fans waited hours past when the tribute bearer normally arrives. But the "Poe Toaster" was a no-show for a third year in a row, leaving another unanswered question in a mystery worthy of the writer's legacy. Poe fans had said they would hold one last vigil this year before calling an end to the tradition.

The tradition of the appearance of the cloaked man who left three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac had it's origins in the 1940's.

It is thought that the tributes of an anonymous man wearing black clothes with a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat, who leaves three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe's original grave on the writer's birthday, date to at least the 1940s. Late Wednesday, a crowd gathered outside the gates of the burial ground surrounding Westminster Hall to watch for the mysterious visitor, yet only three impersonators appeared, Jerome said.

More than two hundred years since his birth, Edgar Allan Poe continues to engage readers with his brand of macabre tales.

[Jeff] Jerome [- the curator of the Edgar Allan Poe museum] - who was first exposed to Poe through Vincent Price's movies, believes people still identify with Poe's suffering and his lifelong dream to be a poet. He has kept a vigil for the "Poe Toaster" each year since 1978 and built up a team of other dedicated Poe fans who stay awake all night to scan the shadows of the burial ground for the visitor.

"I've been part of a ritual that people around the world read about," he said. "I'll miss it."

Poe fans call an end to 'Toaster' tradition  | ajc.com.