The image introducing this tour was not taken during Poe’s lifetime. It is an altered copy of one that was. This image is an 1877 albumen print of an 1849 daguerreotype taken by William Pratt at his studio down Capitol Square on Main Street shortly before Poe’s final exit from Richmond in September 1849. The print differs from the original daguerreotype. When Poe sat for his last portrait, he wasn’t holding a quill pen. That was the albumen artist’s touch. There’s a background change – the albumen print is lighter – and so he appears more melancholy than the daguerreotype. The image evokes the mysteriousness which has come to be associated with Poe. He had his demons; where they came from nobody knows for sure. He was ushered into the world and had a life as unique as the characters he wrote about. He married young, struggled, fought and romanticized it all. Most particular, his death was shrouded in mystery: disappearing, reappearing, dying after uttering fateful, ironic words. In the end, he couldn’t have written his own end any better. Though over the course of his life he tried. He wrote a lot of stuff – tales of horror and terror (for sure), but also criticism, poetry, short stories, a novel, and stuff that has no classification. He wrote letters, and, people wrote him back, and about him - peers, acquaintances, researchers, and historians. From it all, a chronicle of Poe’s life has emerged in books, studies, and projects. His is a life well documented. Today’s mobile technology can bring that documentation to the place where it happened. The internet is filled with information, covering vast swaths, but sparsely filled with knowledge. Knowledge is created when information intersects experience and then develops when reflection looks back not just at the information, but the way understanding is created around the information and experience. This tour weaves a story through information, connects it to the landscape, then engages with it by walking through the landscape in order to better experience it. Doing so will increase your knowledge about Poe’s last day. Beginning and ending with the image, the 1877 albumen print. The albumen print - and other artifacts on this tour – can be found at the Poe Museum (1914-16 East Main Street) in a building Poe would have passed by if he had made his way out of Richmond to catch a steamship.

Not a stop during his last day. This location is for William Pratt's Daguerrean studio, known on Main St. as “Virginia Skylight Daguerrean Gallery at the Sign of the Gothic Window” Poe did not stop here his last day, but stopped here just days before. William Pratt caught Poe on the street and cajoled Poe into sitting for this famous last portrait - the one shown here, the basis for the latter, altered 1877 albumen print. Follow the web link to a great description by a local blog "The Shockoe Examiner."

Poe spent his last night here, at the "country" home of the Mackenzie family out in the then suburbs of Richmond. The augmented reality form can be placed through a mobile phone's viewfinder onto the place where Duncan Lodge stood.

Richmond's blistering local paper. Poe stopped here to talk to the editor, John Moncure Daniel.

Poe stopped here at the office of the Southern Literary Messenger to talk to the editor, John Reuben Thompson. He ended up leaving a copy of "Annabel Lee."

Poe had been staying here since arriving in Richmond weeks ago. When he left, he left a trunk here. The trunk is now on display at The Poem Museum. The augmented reality form can be placed through a mobile phone's viewfinder and viewed where The Swan used to stand.

Poe stopped here in the evening of his last night in Richmond. The image displayed here, as well as many other images in the tour, can also be found at The Poe Museum, in the online collection, or at stop #8 of this tour.

Poe stopped here on his way down to dinner in Shockoe Bottom, after leaving Elmyra Shelton's. The image here of the cane can be found in the online collection of The Poe Museum. The cane can be found in the museum itself, at stop #8 on this tour.

Poe had dinner here his last night. This is the location of his last confirmed whereabouts. The augmented reality form is a newspaper photo taken 60 years after Poe's death, but reports to be Sadler's Restaurant. The augmented reality form can be placed through a mobile phone's viewfinder onto the same place as Sadler's Restaurant.

The Poe Museum should be your first and last stop for more information about Edgar Allan Poe. Please visit. Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm. Sunday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm Online at poemuseum.org.

It is supposed that Poe got on a streamship in the early morning. But, nobody knows for sure. And there are many ways out of Richmond.