This book investigates the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe, a true crime that has been shrouded in speculation and myth for centuries, and Dawidziak's dual-timeline narrative sheds new light on the enigmatic author's life and death. With its dark and mysterious tone, A Mystery of Mysteries promises to be a gripping and informative read that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The author attempts to debunk the speculations shrouding Edgar Allan Poe's death.

While the author has obviously done his research, the writing is disjointed which makes it difficult to follow the timeline of Poe's life and subsequent death. The one positive effect of reading this book is that I now want to read more of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poems.

This was a thorough biography. It could quite possibly be the most truthful and honest recounting of Poe's life. So many things we have been taught about Poe are wrong. One thing I found quite interesting was the fact that there are very few photos of Poe, and the famous ones we have seen were only from a small period of his life, not how he looked throughout adulthood.
Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for a free and unbiased review.

I really wanted to like this book, but it was a slow build and dragged, even for a biography. I did not finish.

I absolutely loved this book. I’ve read many books about Poe and his death and this one basically takes all of them, coordinates the multiple versions of events and relays them to the reader in a very logical and coherent fashion. The reader doesn’t feel as if they are being told what the ‘truth’ is (as we’ll never really know) but presents the options with discussions of the strength of each and allows the reader to form their own opinion of what happened. I want to read more by this author.

I learned more about EAP than I had known before. Neatly written and nice flow of information that is not overwhelming.

Another biography of Edgar A. Poe as told through the various theories of his strange death. The book claims to offer new insight into Poe's death, but that horse has been beaten to death. The author also offers his own thoughts on Poe's life.

"A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe" gives a unique look at the author many of us have come to know through his works. Dawidziak did a masterful job of exploring the life of this poet. I happen to be a huge fan of Author Biographies and this one is top-notch.

I loved this book! Simply because it gave Poe a chance to tell his story. Poor guy it’s apparent how he was his own worst enemy. And the drinking! Good lord! He was destined to die young poor and ill. If anyone knew him well enough 1. They should be ashamed of themselves for not helping and supporting him, or did they not do that sort of thing for friends back in the day? And 2. Tippling never fixes anything and I cannot imagine what works we would have now had he not that genetic malady. I think that’s the more unfortunate fact because just about everything he wrote is now unquestionably a masterpiece.
This book did a great job of staying unbiased. Yet we still witness the self-destruction beginning to ending.

A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review a gifted copy of this book. This in no way affects my review, all opinions are my own.

I was very intrigued by this book. I, like many others, love Poe's writing and have always wondered about the man behind our world's best horror stories. This book gives a unique spin to a biography in that it flips back and forth between information on Poe's life and informed speculations on his death. I definitely learned a lot from this book and appreciate the new light it cast on Poe as a person, and how the caricaturized exaggeration of him as this gothic and sullen man doesn't do justice to who he really was during his lifetime.

I will say this book is a bit repetitive in its ruminations on Poe's death and that it could've been significantly shorter. I also don't think the chapters flowed too well as there was a lot of hopping around timelines that didn't make sense to me. So while I can appreciate all of the research that went into this book, I think it could've benefitted from more finetuning in its content.

As stated in the title, this book takes a look at both the life of Edgar Allan Poe and the mysteriousness surrounding his sudden death. The chapters alternate between examining his life and how our modern image of him is mainly wrong and the days leading up to his death and some of the possible causes.

While very well researched, I don't think this book really added anything new to the discussion about Poe that hasn't already been written in the over 150 years since his death. A lot of the writing was super dry as well, and I found some parts hard to get through. Overall, a good book if you know absolutely nothing about Poe.

I had a lot of fun with this book. Edgar Allan Poe was one of those authors that I really enjoyed reading growing up and I never minded when we had to do assignments based on his work in English classes. Being able to learn more about such an interesting and complicated man was great. It was really up my alley and explained things very well. I recommend this for anyone who has a passing knowledge of Poe and wants to know more.

I had problems with this book, i just could not read it. I ended up listening to it instead. I think the main issue for me me was that it was repetitive. There were different parts but each part talked about things from the previous parts. I also had a really hard time keeping timelines straight because of this.
*I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.*

I really love Edgar Allan Poe so I found the book to be really interesting, but I did know a lot of the information already so it became a bit boring and slow at times. It was obviously well researched and you can tell the author put a lot of work into it. Would recommend for anyone who likes historical nonfiction.

I'm a Poe fiend so this is the kind of book that's designed for me, lol. I enjoyed the history, the mystery, the weirdness. It was a nonfiction that I could easily get into, which is usually hard for me.

I loved this book about Poe. Reading it, I actually realized that much of what I thought I knew about EAP was not always correct. Dawidziak is an excellent writer and this is a compelling read for fans of Poe, literary bios, or just good books.

Title: A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
Author: Mark Dawidziak
Release Date: February 14th, 2023
Page Count: 283
Format: Netgalley/Audiobook
Start Date: March 27th, 2023
Finish Date: March 29th, 2023

Rating: 4 Stars

Review:

The title says it all. This book is all about the many possibilities of how Edgar Allen Poe died. It also talks about his life and his struggles. I wasn't aware that he was an alcoholic in this book. I actually learned a lot about him because of this book. Well, the book and the research that the book inspired me to do. I did enjoy it. I would also like to have my mother read this book as well. I think she'd really enjoy it. I think a few people who are in my life would enjoy it. It did leave me with many questions though. I think that was the point of the book though.

I’ve been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe since I was young and I still own a complete collection of his works. The Tell-Tale Heart still haunts me. I was so excited to have an opportunity to read this biography of his life weaved with discussion and hypotheses of his mysterious death. This book is really fascinating and well-written and researched. Highly recommend to all Poe fans. Thank you so much to SMP, the author, and NetGalley for the ARC!

DNF - Sadly I found this book extremely boring. It seems well researched and I’m sure if you’re a die-hard fan of Poe, you might love it. I am intrigued by Poe’s death but not enough to keep reading this book. Maybe I’ll just check out Reddit instead.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book for review. This did not affect my review.

So I have been reading this for several months and finally finished it. I am very interested in Poe and have read many books about him and watched many documentaries about him. This book is very heavily researched to the point of boredom at time. I already knew many of the facts presented, but did learn some new pieces of information. I don't see myself recommending this to anyone. I am wondering if this as a TV show would be better.