10 Authors Who Died In Mysterious Or Strange Ways
From snow-stuffed chickens to falling tortoises.
One of the hardest things to get right, when writing fiction, is the ending. There are some authors out there who have applied this idea to their own lives. Death comes to us all, but leave it to a novelist or a playwright to end things with intrigue.
Edgar Allen Poe for example, the father of detective fiction, died in such mysterious circumstances that his death remains unsolved to this day. He's not the only one whose demise was tinged with mystery.
Whether it’s a chicken stuffed with snow, a tortoise landing on your head, or a Japanese coup d’état gone wrong, authors know how to end things with a twist.
10. Edgar Allen Poe (1809 – 1849)
Edgar Allen Poe is most famous for his darkly gothic poem, The Raven. His short stories were filled with macabre and mystery, as was his own death.
On 27 September 1849, Edgar Allen Poe set off from Richmond, Virginia on his way to Philadelphia to edit a collection of poems by fellow poet Mrs. St. Leon Loud. He never made it to his destination.
After being missing for six days he was found half-unconscious in a gutter wearing soiled clothes that were not his own.
Nobody ever found out what happened to him in those six days, and the mystery is still unsolved. He died three days after he was found in the gutter, delirious and gripped by visual hallucinations. The night before his death he called out for “Reynolds” but the person to whom that name belonged was never discovered.