Baltimore Poe House and Museum — Garret Room

This small room is the third floor of the house. It is reached by a tiny and winding stairway from the master bedroom on the second floor. The dormer window looks out over the front of the house. The furniture shown is of the correct period, although not the furniture that would have been here when Poe lived in this house. Some biographers believe that this is the room Poe would have used. Others suspect that it may have been the young Virginia’s room. Because the only way in or out of the room is through what was the bedroom of Mrs. Clemm and her invalid mother, it might have been seen as inappropriate, under Victorian conventions, for a young man to regularly pass through the room. The narrow stairs are also far more easily navigated by a child than an adult. In any case, the room is extremely atmospheric, with the close ceiling evoking a sense of the claustrophia present in many of Poe’s tales.