Loathsome Mass of Detestable Putridity

03/31/25 • 26 min

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - and this is episode 353 - Loathsome Mass of Detestable Putridity
Hello, my name is George Bartley, and the Ghost of Mr. Poe is here right beside me. I hope you have listened to the previous episode for sections from 5 of Poe’s six hoax stories. But there is one more - a story that is very much a hoax, - not an exploration story or trip to the moon - but a really creepy tale - and today Mr. Poe will read from that story. By the way, the two words that end the story - loathsome detestable putridity - mean deserving of strong hatred or the state of being putrid.

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Previous Episode

Poe's Hoaxes, Part One

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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.

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Next Episode

Encountering Poe’s Ghost Revisited

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Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 354, Encountering Poe’s Ghost Revisited
I looked at the time I have left for podcasts this month, and realized that I had just enough for one more episode - and this will not be a long episode at all. So I would like to revisit the first episode, and update it a little bit.
By the way, this first episode was one of the most listened-to of all 354 episodes of Celebrate Poe.
You see, there was a time when one of my favorite things to do was go to the massive Alderman Library at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. One night I was doing some research at the library using some books that I could not find anywhere else. Just being in that library was always a wonderful experience - seated with towering columns of books all around me- volumes brimming with the knowledge of the ages.

I had no idea that in a few minutes I would encounter the Ghost of Edgar Allan Poe! And I could have never imagined that he would want me to do a podcast!

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