Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 339 - “Blood is My Beauty Secret”I want to devote the next few episodes to Elizabeth Bathory -I read that she was a distant descendant of Vlad the Impaler - sounds interest...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 338 - The Haunted PalaceAs you may know, The Castle of Otranto was written by Horace Walpole and first published on December 24, 1764. While the first edition was dated 1765, it was released at the ...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 337, The First Gothic NovelI’d like to begin this podcast episode with an excerpt from the opening chapter of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole - an excerpt which captures the dramatic and sup...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 336 - A Medieval Soap OperaLet’s jump right into The Castle of Otranto - a book that is widely regarded as the first Gothic novel and the foundation of all Gothic literature. Written by Horace Walpo...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 335- Meddling With Life and DeathThis episode is a continuation of a discussion between Mr. Bartley and the Ghost of Edgar Allan Poe regarding Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. 

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 334 Poe and FrankensteinBoth Mary Shelley and Poe delve into Gothic themes such as monstrosity, isolation, guilt, and the boundaries of human experience.  For example, in Frankenstein, Victor F...

In this episode, I want to delve into what is generally viewed as the first vampire novel - the VAMPYRE by John William Polidori and published in 1819. This novella marked the beginning of modern vampire fiction and introduced the archetype ...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 332 - DarknessThe Vampyre and Frankenstein are two liteary works that came out of the literary competition at the Villa Diadati - but another lesser known work is Lord George Gordon Byron’s Darkness...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 331 - The Year Without a Summer, Part TwoIn the previous episode, I talked about the basic background behind the eruption of Mount Tamboro - but in this episode I would like to delve into not only t...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This is Episode 330 - The Year Without a Summer, Part One - the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora would have been much longer, and much louder, and become an ecological terror.Now, In the past few episodes, P...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 355 - Vlad the Impaler, Part TwoIn the previous episode, I talked excusively about the historical figure - Vlad the Impaler.  But in this episode, I want to introduce a literary figure - Dracul...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 328 - Vlad the Impaler, Part OneVlad the Impaler was a 15th-century ruler of Wallachia, a historical region in modern-day Romania. His life and reign were marked by political intrigue, military camp...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 327 - How Terrible Was Ivan?I hope that from the previous episode, you have come to the conclusion that Ivan the Terrible was a very formidable guy.  But how did he get the name Ivan the Terrib...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 326 - Don’t Fool with IvanFrom Poe’s favorite melody to Russia’s darkest czar - now In this episode, I want to continue an exploration of Gothic works and the psychological complexities that...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This is episode 325 - The Hero’s JourneyDuring the Christmas holidays, you may remember that I went over the the complete The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, written in 1900.  And by the way, ...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 325 - Translating PoeBefore Celebrate Poe goes any further, I want to admit that I am going back and dealing with some of the influences of Poe - emphasizing that they were part of Gothic literature...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 325 - Translating PoeBefore Celebrate Poe goes any further, I want to admit that I am going back and dealing with some of the influences of Poe - emphasizing that they were part of Gothic literature...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 321 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part Three)I hope you listened to the previous episode that deals with Thomas De Quincy and his 1821 autobiographical work "Confessions of an English Opium-Eate...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - my name is George Bartley and this is episode 321 - Answer to ListenerThe intro music was Come Rest in This Bosom - said to be Edgar Poe’s favorite song.  I’d like to start with a whooper of an...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe  - Episode 320 -  DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part TwoWhen I started this podcast, my plans are to delve more into Charles Baudelaire, but I ran into something that I did not expect.  Oh su...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 319 - Intolerable LeadersThis should be episode 319 - Baudelaire, De Quincey, and Poe - Part Two.  But while I was looking through some past transcripts on my web site, I ran across one that ad...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 318 - DeQuincy, Baudelaire, and Poe - Part OneRecently, I ran across a book about Charles Baudelaire called A Portrait of the Artist as a Drug Addict.  There is no question about it - A...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 317 - Flowers of EvilToday I want to look at some of Baudelaire’s masterpiece - Les Fleurs du Mal - or The Flowers of Evil. First published in 1857, the poems were extremely controversial upon publi...

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 316 - From Ecstasy to AnguishMany years ago, when I was working at the Poe Museum in Richmond, I remember the brilliant curator, Chris Semptner talking about a French writer who was greatly in...

I guess you could say I unconsciously (or maybe even consciously) devoted at least 11 or 12 of the previous episodes reading the complete version of the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - because the movie Wicked is currently popular...