[OCTOBERFEAST is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as Satan’s Snacktime]

Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the most celebrated madman in all of American literature. When he wasn’t drinking himself into a stupor or bedding his thirteen year old cousin-bride or snorting blow off of cadaver asses, Poe spent his time setting the precedents for what would become the modern horror genre. Oh, and he also invented the detective story.

It was a pretty solid life for a guy whose last days on Earth consisted of being found wandering Baltimore in someone else’s clothes while crying out for some mystery figure named “Reynolds.” Perhaps if this Reynolds had revealed himself, Poe wouldn’t have collapsed into a death-coma. But then again, perhaps the legend of Poe wouldn’t be quite so epic without a hazy opium-cloud of a demise.

Of all his works, The Masque of the Red Death may be Poe’s most explicit acknowledgment that his reckless ways would lead to a tragic demise.

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