The public monument is a symbol of a historical figure's lasting influence. Only Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and a few European writers of weird fiction have had commemorative plaques erected in their name. However, only one strange scribe has won a life size statue. Edgar Allan Poe's unique place in American literature leaves him as the weird "king" best recognized and memorialized by public consciousness.
Baltimore's Poe statue was unveiled nearly a century ago, and today stands as a testament to his greatness. It has suffered the elements, vandalism, and a move to the University of Baltimore campus, just outside their law school. Oddly, it has symbolically dovetailed the posthumous reputation of the man it was modeled on. And still it stands, like Poe himself--seemingly inveterate and unassailable, always somewhere in the culture's shadows.
Visit the Edgar Allan Poe Society's page on the writer's Baltimore likeness for its full history.
-Grim Blogger