Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune… (“Bells” – Edgar Allen Poe, 1849)
One of Poe’s more famous poetic works strikes a tone with the plot of the newest literary YouTube series, Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party. Hoping to attract the love of his life, Annabelle Lee, Poe throws a dinner party with his eternal ghost, Lenore, inviting Annabelle as well as all the greatest classic authors—including the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Shelley, and even Emily Dickinson (though whether she’ll show up is undecided). As with all murder mystery parties, Poe gives each guest a card with information about characters they will play, leading up to deducing who murdered the victim.
Being hosted by Poe, one of the leaders in gothic poetry, the idea of a murder mystery is perfect, especially once the story adds in the dark humor of Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway. The true mystery arises when a real victim of murder is revealed instead of the play’s victim, the group’s own ghost, Lenore. Who killed this guest, and is his current relationship to Poe a clue? Will this party help Poe draw the wanted attention of Annabelle Lee? Will Emily Dickinson show up, and how long exactly will she stay (it’s a large group of people, I’d be scared to be there also)?
Edgar Allan’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party is presented by Shipwrecked comedy, following a smaller series featuring Poe and Lenore, A Tell-tale Vlog, showing Poe (Sean Persaud) in all of his social awkwardness (ex. “Socially Awkward Edgar Allan Poe: Girl Scout Cookies”). These video clips grew into a larger Kickstarter project about a year later which quickly drew attention and funding based on the original videos’ popularity.
More recently we were introduced to several characters prior to the start of the series in a group of prologue videos at the end of the Kickstarter. In these videos, authors unable to attend, such as J.M. Barrie, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Leo Tolstoy, converse with Poe, each in their own unique way, despite the clear time differences between their lives.
From the trailer I was immediately hooked on this story, ready to see my favorite authors portrayed in their own gothic version of Murder by Death. For characters I was unfamiliar with, the research involved made the first episode even funnier, especially George Eliot, who wrote under a male pseudonym and continues this ruse for the party. If you are an English major, teacher, or just a literary geek, this is worth checking out. If you attend though, remember it’s a potluck.
You can find the trailer on YouTube, and a new episode every Monday until Halloween.