Baltimore Has Poe; Philadelphia Wants Him. NYT.

"Philadelphia can keep its broken bell and its cheese steak, but Poe's body isn't going anywhere," said Jeff Jerome, the curator of the Poe House in Baltimore and Mr. Pettit's opponent in the debate.

"If they want a body, they can have John Wilkes Booth," Mr. Jerome added, referring to Abraham Lincoln's assassin, who is also buried in Baltimore.

Providence could get into this fight -- Poe courted Sarah Helen Whitman in the stacks of The Athenaeum on Benefit Street, after all. Highlights of his life in 1848:

· September 21: Poe travels to Providence, RI, to meet Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman to whom he makes a proposal of marriage.

· November: another journey to Providence for the same reason, then proceeds to Boston where he tries to commit suicide.

· December 20: Poe lectures in Providence.

· December 22: a marriage agreement is drawn up, the wedding is to take place a few days later, but the engagement is broken off.

The public-domain image of Poe above that the Times uses was shot by "W.S. Hartshorn, Providence, Rhode Island, on November 9th, 1848" (the odd credit to "Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times" notwithstanding). This would place the photo just before his suicide attempt.

But somehow... grave-robbing probably isn't our style.