Mar 31 2025 22 mins 1
Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 352 - Poe’s Hoaxes, Part One
Being April Fool’s day, today I want to look at Poe’s six hoax stories - in fact, Edgar Allan Poe approvingly called his time the “epoch of the hoax.” Even though Poe’s motives in writing hoaxes may sometimes seem odd or obscure, his hoaxes live on as a quirky and fascinating part of literary history.
After a great deal of thought, I decided to deal with five of the hoax stories in this episode, and a hoax story that could also be classified as a tale of terror in the following episode. And I plan to release both episodes on April Fool’s day - then go much deeper into Poe’s hoax stories for the entire month of 2026 - they are some of Poe’s most influential writings. And that is no April Fool’s joke.
Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.
