'Every suicide is a tragedy, and even more so if it is related to problem gambling,' he said. Total gambling losses in Victoria hit $5.49 billion in 2011-12, up from $5.21 billion in 2010-11. Risk theatre posits that each dramatic act is also a gambling act. Thus, the tragic occurs when risk runs awry, and risk theatre entertains by dramatizing this risk.” In an age of risk, when society lacks stability and to be heroic is to be a gambler, tragedies must find a way to dramatize the existential wager that people make every day.

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The point of gambling is to entertain yourself and enjoy both the games and action. Many players are able to do this without going overboard. Unfortunately, a small percentage of gamblers have a problem. And this addiction can lead to struggles in other areas of one’s life.

Every problem gambling story is sad to some degree. But certain ones are especially tragic due to massive losses and other circumstances. I’m going to discuss 11 of the most-tragic gamblers in history. These high-profile players lost a lot more than just what they blew in the casino.

You’ve likely heard of Oriental Trading, which is one of the largest companies in the direct selling industry. Terrance Watanabe, a Japanese-American businessman, played a big role in Oriental Trading’s rise to prominence. In 1982, he took a controlling stake in the family business and build it into a wholesaling giant that sold over $300 million annually.
Watanabe sold Oriental Trading in 2000 for an undisclosed amount. Up until this point, he’d always concentrated on business over pleasure. But Watanabe changed his ways after earning a fortune from the sale of Oriental Trading. He began playing a variety of casino games, including slot machines, keno, and roulette.

Watanabe differed from many high rollers, who usually play games with low house edges like blackjack and baccarat. He instead enjoyed games with a large house edge, much to the delight of casinos. They showered him with comps as he gambled heavily in their casinos throughout the early and mid-2000s. Watanabe certainly didn’t beat the odds either as he lost a vast fortune.

The Nevada Gaming Commission fined Caesars $225,000 for allowing Watanabe to use illegal drugs on their property and also make “inappropriate sexual advances towards Caesars employees.” He and the casino settled out of court afterward for an undisclosed amount.

Akio Kashiwagi was a Tokyo property developer who hadan exorbitant amount of wealth. He claimed$1 billion in assets and also made $100 million annually. This fortune allowed him to become one of the biggest whales in Atlantic City and Vegas casinos.
“The Warrior” commonly wagered between $100,000 and $200,000 per hand while playing baccarat. He usually bet on credit and settled his debts with casinos afterward. Given Kashiwagi’s reputation, he was commonly granted huge credit lines worth $1 million or more. He was also given the chance to negotiate special deals with casinos, such as one he made with President Donald Trump and his Trump Taj Mahal casino in 1991.

Trump cut him off at $10 million in losses, which angered Kashiwagi. He left the casino with his remaining $2 million bankroll and failed to settle the debt afterward. The Warrior would never pay back his losses since he was murdered in his Japan home near Mount Fuji in January 1992. His body was found riddled with 150 wounds from a samurai sword.

Art Schlichter had a legendary college football career as quarterback of the Ohio State Buckeyes. He led the school to an undefeated regular season in 1979 and previously held the Buckeyes’ record for total offense. Unfortunately for Schlichter, he developed a serious gambling problem while he was in college. He bet heavily on horse races and sports, which caused him to lose several thousand dollars before he even graduated from Ohio State.
Things didn’t get any better after he was drafted fourth overall by the Indianapolis Colts in the 1982 NFL Draft. Expected to be Indianapolis’ quarterback of the future, he lost his starting job to the unheralded Mike Pagel early on in his career. Schlichter seemed more focused on gambling, which caused him to fritter away a $350,000 signing bonus before his rookie season was over. The NFL had a strike in 1982, which Schlichter used to use increase the amount of time he spent on gambling.

He would never play another down in the NFL again. But Schlichter continued making headlines for his gambling problems. He eventually started conning friends and families into giving him money, which he gambled away. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to theft and other charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Hollywood producer David Milch is famous for creating NYPD Blue (1993-2005) and Deadwood (2004-07). The former Yale English literature professor is lauded for his unique writing style and elaborate plots. Unfortunately, Milch has also become well known for having a serious gambling problem. A 2016 Hollywood Reporter feature details how he lost an alleged $100 million through gambling.
Milch’s downfall appears to be horseracing, because he became a regular at California’s Santa Anita (closed in 2013). One source told the Hollywood Reporter that Milch would wager “thousands and thousands of dollars” and“bet every race.” The legendary producer stopped paying his debts at one point and was sued. Court documents show that he lost $25 million from 2000 to 2011 alone.

He was also revealed to have had $17 million in tax debt, which forced him to agree to a payment plan with the IRS. Milch has since surrendered multiple mansions and other properties in an effort to pay off his debts. He’s also been put on a $40 allowance by his wife to prevent him from gambling. This is shocking when considering that he’s made tens of millions of dollars for his work on NYPD Blue, Deadwood, and Hill Street Blues.

5 – Safa Al Geabury

Safa Abdulla Al Geabury is a Swiss businessman who lays claim to an Islamic art collection that’s been valued at over $1 billion. He used his vast amount of wealth to take out a large marker at London’s Ritz Club in 2014. Al Geabury proceeded to gamble away £2.2 million and refused to settle the debt afterward.
Al Geabury argued that he was a compulsive gambler who was taken advantage of by the Ritz. The London casino countered by arguing that Al Geabury signed an agreement stating his gambling problem was under control. Justice Simler eventually sided with the Ritz Club on grounds that Al Geabury provided inconsistent testimony. The judge also said that the defendant failed to provide compelling evidence that he had a gambling disorder at the time.

The art collector still refused to pay up, though, which led to another court appearance. Al Geabury refused to show up and claimed that he didn’t have enough money to make the trip to London. The judge finally had enough and sentenced him to 10 months in jail for contempt of court. The judge added it was obvious Al Geabury could afford to pay the £2.2 million debt, but simply refused to do so.

Gladys Knight is well known for her music career, which saw her win seven Grammy Awards from the 1960s to 1980s. The “Empress of Soul” earned a fortune that allowed her to play some of the highest stakes allowed in baccarat and blackjack. Knight never had much luck at the tables and lost $40,000 per night. In total, she estimates to have blown over $6 million through gambling.
What’s interesting about her case, though, is that she was never stressed about the losses. Instead, Knight had a gambling problem so bad that she sometimes forgot her obligations. Case in point, she forgot to take her son to school after staying out all night gambling and drinking. This motivated her to begin attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings and eventually giving up her habit. While Knight’s tale may have initially started out tragic, it’s good to hear that she’s now on the right path.

7 – Leonard Tose

Leonard Tose made a $20 million fortune through a trucking company. He used this money to purchase the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles for $16.1 million in 1969. This is a small amount compared to what NFL franchises are worth today. But back then – when the league wasn’t as high profile as it is today – the $16.1 million purchase price was a record.
Tose owned the Eagles from 1969 to 1985. He was only forced to sell his team for $65 million after accumulating heavy gambling losses. He racked up a $25 million debt at various casinos around the United States. Tose tried suing the same casinos for $500,000 each on account that they encouraged him to drink and continue gambling. Tose lost these court battles and was ordered to pay his debts. He eventually ended up broke and evicted from his mansion.

Real estate developer Harry Kakavas a earned a fortune worth over $1 billion by selling homes on Australia’s Gold Coast. Rather than using his wealth to make more money, Kakavas spent most of his fortune in casinos. The pathological gambler is estimated to have lost $1.5 billion in just over a year.
It’s easy to see why Kakavas lost so quickly when considering that he often made baccarat bets worth $300,000 per hand. After losing a massive amount in Australian casinos, he took his play to establishments in Las Vegas and Macau. Kakavas’ luck wasn’t much better at these casinos as he continued losing heavily. He once dropped $164 million during a single session in May 2006.

Perhaps Kakavas might have dug himself out of the hole had he continued focusing on his lucrative real estate career. But he instead spent the next several years trying to sue various casinos. Kakavas claimed that these gambling establishments provided him lavish comps in order to continue taking advantage of him. He predictably lost these lawsuits and failed to recover his money.

9 – Pete Rose

Pete Rose is arguably the best baseball player of all time. He still holds Major League Baseball record for the most hits (4256), games played (3,562), and singles (3,215). But rather than being celebrated for his athletic talents, Rose is much better known for his gambling scandal.
“Charlie Hustle” didn’t lose a massive portion of his fortune like most of the other people on this list. Instead, he committed a cardinal sports sin by gambling on baseball. Rose managed the Cincinnati Reds up until 1989, at which point the MLB opened an investigation into allegations that he gambled on the sport. Rose denied the claims for years. But the MLB found enough evidence to support allegations that he bet both for and against the Reds. It’s especially damning that he may have bet against Cincinnati. After all, he could’ve used his managerial position to influence results.

The league dropped potential criminal charges against Rose in exchange for him signing a permanent ban agreement.He eventually admitted in 2004 that he did bet on games as the Cincinnati manager. But he adamantly denies ever wagering against the Reds. Whenever the truth may be, Rose remains banned from baseball and unable to enter the Hall of Fame.

Jimmy White is one of the greatest snooker players of all time. He’s a six-time World Championship finalist and continues to play the game at age 56. Unfortunately, White lost a large amount of his snooker winnings by gambling on casino games and sports. He estimates have blown £2 million on gambling.
White told the Sun that he gambled to the point where he didn’t even care about wins and losses. Instead, he simply enjoyed the action. However, “The Whirlwind” finally became fed up with his gambling problem after splitting up with his wife, Maureen, and realizing how much time he wasted at sportsbooks.

Gambling Tragedies Quotes

Another catalyst for White’s change is that his friend and fellow snooker doubles partner, Alex Higgins, was also struggling with gambling addiction. White has since been able to kick his problem. He also stopped his partying ways, which he estimates cost him another £200,000.

11 – Archie Karas

A gambling tragedy can be viewed differently depending upon the perspective. Archie Karas would be considered a tragic story by many people. But Karas, who admittedly doesn’t care much for money, has never had a problem with his gambling addiction – even after blowing $40 million.
Karas’ story is quite amazing when considering that he started one of the greatest gambling runs of all time with just $50 in his pocket. He borrowed $10,000 from a poker buddy in 1992 and proceeded to run this amount up to millions of dollars through a combination of pool and poker.

Karas was on such a hot roll that pros began refusing to play him in poker and pool. By this time, he’d accumulated a $17 million fortune and could’ve easily retired from gambling. Instead, Karas switched to house-banked games in order to continue finding action. He got lucky in craps and ran his bankroll up to $40 million by 1995.

He continued betting high stakes on a combination of craps, baccarat, and poker. Karas’ losing streak continued as his bankroll eventually reached zero by 1996. Amazingly, he’s had several multi-million dollar runs since then. But Karas has always lost the money at some point or another. In 2013, he was arrested for marking cards at San Diego’s Barona casino. This got him blacklisted from Nevada casinos, where he’d been caught cheating multiple times before.

Tose, a former Philadelphia Eagles owner, ended up completely broke and lost his home. Schlichter resorted to conning relatives and friends in order to support his habit. David Milch is still a connected Hollywood producer. But he’s been living on a $40 weekly allowance after blowing a fortune through horse betting.

Pete Rose is a different case from the men discussed above, because he didn’t lose all of his money on gambling. Instead, he tarnished his baseball legacy by betting on the game as a manager. Akio Kashiwagi is a particularly tragic story when considering that he ended up dead. No connection has never been made to his murder and gambling debts, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility.

Archie Karas is perhaps the most-interesting tale in this list. He built a $40 million fortune through gambling, then lost it all. Karas has never regretted this time period, though, because he’s a gambler at heart who loves action over money. But not every gambling tragedy is this carefree about the matter. Some lament their losses and will always regret losing everything.

In all of American literature, there might be no master of the macabre so celebrated as Edgar Allan Poe. From his unforgettable, supernatural-tinged poem 'The Raven' to the haunting twist at the core of 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' Poe's style and themes form the crux of almost all horror stories today. He knew how to create believable characters, place them in eerie settings, and leave the reader feeling chilled to the core. Millions of writers owe him a debt of gratitude.

Behind the cloak and daggers of Poe's tales, though, what was the real man like? While it would be nice if the person who wrote such scary fables could have had a happy time on Earth, the record shows that Poe's short life was instead filled with constant tragedy, heartbreak, and an enemy who tried to ruin his reputation. The real Edgar Allan Poe was quite different from the legend, but no less worthy of study.

Edgar Allan Poe was orphaned at a young age

In 1809, a boy named Edgar Poe — note, no 'Allan' — was born to two traveling stage actors, as reported by the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.

The father was David Poe, Jr., who hailed from a hardcore military family so entrenched in their ways that David had to refer to his dad as 'General,' according to Dr. Shelley Costa Bloomfield. Needless to say, these folks weren't happy when Junior fell in love with the talented thespian Eliza Arnold, nor when he followed her onto the stage for his own artsy career. Once married, the couple had two sons: William and Edgar. The latter boy was named after a character in Shakespeare's play King Lear, which the couple was performing at the time.

Sadly, David wasn't a good father. His struggles with heavy drinking, fighting, and financial hardship were stressful enough, but he also may have also resented Eliza's far more successful acting career. Whatever his problems may have been, he deserted his family, leaving Eliza alone to raise the children. By the time young Edgar was 3-years-old, Eliza came down sick and died. Apparently, David died soon afterward, though the circumstances of his demise are unknown. Regardless, this left the young children with no parents, and no safe place to go.

Edgar Allan Poe had a horrendous adoptive father

Edgar Poe was soon adopted by the Allan family: hence, he became Edgar 'Allan' Poe. Unfortunately, while he got along well with his adoptive mother Frances, the thorny connection to his new dad John Allan proved to be a source of conflict, misery, and heartbreak for much of Poe's life.

Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant, wanted Poe to follow him into the family business, according to Biography, and was thus highly dismissive of Poe's literary passions. Poe, in turn, rebelled by writing poems on the back of Allan's business papers. The relationship further soured as Poe grew older, as seen in letters preserved by the National Park Service, when Allan repeatedly refused to lend Poe necessary financial assistance — despite frequent, desperate pleading from Poe — leading to the academically successful boy being unable to afford his classes, falling deep into debt, and becoming increasingly destitute. Allan, for his part, seems to have been remarkably dismissive of the boy's concerns. He once wrote Poe off as 'quite miserable, sulky & ill-tempered,' and bizarrely touted how magnanimous he'd been for paying for Poe's education even though he was the one whose lack of support, in fact, had caused Poe's hardships. Not the kind of guy you want as a dad, that's for sure.

It's worth noting that, despite taking Poe in, Allan never legally adopted the boy. This spiteful move caused deeper rifts down the line.

Edgar Allan Poe was in a 'Stacy's Mom' situation

Due to the fact that Poe was so horribly young when his mother perished, he spent much of his early years trying to connect with substitute mother figures, the most notable being his foster mother Frances Allen. According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, another of these was Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of his friend Robert, though it has been speculated — with notable evidence — that Poe, when he was going through puberty, may have developed deeper feelings for her. When situations turned stressful at the Allan household, as they often did, it was Stanard whom Poe would go to for support, and while obviously no true romantic relationship could ever form — this was, at its core, a teenage crush — Poe did have enormous love and respect for her: in addition to writing a poem that subtly compared her to Helen of Troy, Poe would, years later, describe her as 'the first, purely ideal love of my soul.'

Sadly, as would happen to so many close people in Poe's life, Stanard died from illness at a young age, in 1824. Poe was still merely a teenager.

Edgar Allan Poe's military career

When Edgar Allan Poe was drowning in debt, starving, and receiving no aid from John Allan, he turned to a last-ditch solution: according to Mental Floss, he took the false identity of Edgar A. Perry, claimed to be a 22-year-old Boston clerk, and signed up for a five-year stint with the U.S. Army.

Poe excelled in the military. He also hated it. After two years of moving up and down the East Coast, making $5 a month, and being promoted to sergeant major for artillery, Poe was desperate for a way out, and confessed his true story to his commanding officer. Miraculously, the officer was okay with letting Poe out early ... but, not-so-miraculously, he stipulated that Poe had to first make amends with his obnoxious adoptive father. Ugh.

Undeterred, Poe began writing letters to Allan. Allan, being the jerk he was, didn't respond. However, the death of Frances Allan forced the two men to reconcile, at which point Allan agreed to let Poe leave the service early ... so long as he enrolled at West Point, the United States Military Academy. Sigh. Poe did as was asked, and excelled in his studies, but when Allan remarried, Allan shut down communication with him. Poe wanted out of military life for real this time, but once again, he needed Allan's express permission to leave, and Allan wouldn't give it. So Poe solved the problem by flunking his studies, being as insubordinate as possible, and purposely getting himself kicked out of West Point.

Edgar Allan Poe had an on-again/off-again romance

Perhaps the most continual thread running through Edgar Allan Poe's love life, from beginning to end, was a woman named Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton. She was, essentially, Poe's first and last love. Unfortunately, the two never married, and their relationship always hit some, well, snags.

Sarah and Edgar were childhood friends and neighbors, according to the National Park Service, who became engaged as teenagers. When Poe left to attend the University of Virginia, the two star-crossed lovers continued with an epistolary romance ... which came to a crashing halt when Royster's father caught wind, according to the Odyssey. James Royster did not want an orphan like Poe as a son-in-law, most likely, so he intercepted their letters and left both kids thinking the other had ghosted them. When Poe returned home, perhaps hoping to reunite with her, he instead found that she had married a wealthier man in his place. Many have speculated, based on this sad tale, that Sarah may be the long lost Lenore mentioned throughout 'The Raven.'

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However, their romance didn't end there. When Royster Shelton's husband died in 1848, Poe reached out to her again, and they rekindled their romance. His initial (or, well, second) proposal was rebuffed, but a few months later, she accepted. Tragically, the wedding bells never rang out, because 10 days before the wedding, Poe died.

Edgar Allan Poe was the classic 'starving artist'

When you hear about famous artists who, despite changing the world, struggled to catch a break, well, Edgar Allan Poe should be near the top of the list. Despite Poe's magnificent talent, and a fierce desire for success, he spent much of his life in poverty, and his work was consistently undervalued. According to Mental Floss, his first poetry collection, Tamerlane, ended up being a financial disaster, which probably wasn't helped by his unwise decision to use the pseudonym 'A Bostonian.' His second book, Poems, only got off the ground when Poe convinced at least 131 fellow cadets in the Army to give him a buck and a quarter to get it running. Even when he was shopping for a publisher for his landmark poem, 'The Raven,' the Vintage News says that one magazine not only rejected it, but gave Poe $15 in sympathy cash. When he finally sold the poem to The American Review, it netted only $9.

Fortunately, 'The Raven' made Poe mainstream enough to live as a professional writer. He became a household name, according to the Poe Museum, gave lectures, and ran his own magazine. Not so fortunately, his personal life was a mess — the health of his wife, Virginia, worsened by the day — and his finances weren't particularly sturdy. According to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, his annual salary totaled $624. With inflation in mind, that's equivalent to under $20 grand, in today's economy.

Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'

Death happens. Haunting as it may be, it's quite ordinary. It's the inevitable conclusion to every life story. That said, the sheer number of tragic, heartbreaking deaths that Edgar Allan Poe faced in his life — to say nothing of his own death — were far more than ordinary. Looking past the early deaths of his parents and Mrs. Stanard, another tragedy in the young Poe's life was the loss of his foster mother, Frances, who loved him like John Allan didn't. According to the Edgar A. Poe Calendar, Poe was completely unaware of her failing health, and when she died, the Army discharged him so late that he missed the funeral.

Years later, Poe's first wife passed away due to fatal complications from tuberculosis, according to Biography, which was the same disease that killed his mother and his brother. Another incident that particularly stung was the death of John Allan. After all those years of feuding, Allan elected to leave Poe with no inheritance, while instead providing for an unknown child, born out of wedlock, who Poe had never met, despite the fact that Poe was, at this time, living broke and penniless.

Was Edgar Allan Poe an alcoholic or a drug addict?

Needless to say, Edgar Allan Poe had a hard life. He suffered from a lack of unconditional love, a troubled upbringing, and no reliable support system. Because of these struggles, according to Britannica, he often turned to alcohol, particularly when dealing with stressful social situations that required him to be in a good mood around people. While it's impossible to properly diagnose someone who lived hundreds of years ago, it does seem likely that Poe was an alcoholic. He drank more often than his peers, and while he didn't usually reach the point of being inebriated, his drunken instances always seemed to occur, embarrassingly enough, on the public stage.

However, the reality of Poe's very genuine suffering is often clouded by the false stories told by those who disliked him. Poe's enemies often tried to paint him as a town drunk, a drug addict, or someone who only wrote under the influence of chemical stimulants. None of these things were true, according to the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore: as far as drugs go, Poe only seems to have occasionally used opium for medical purposes, as was common in that time, and once claimed to have taken drugs as part of a suicide attempt. So either way, while Poe may have been an alcoholic, he absolutely was not a drug addict.

Only the good die young

Gambling Tragedies Definition

Edgar Allan Poe was only 40 when he died, less than two weeks away from marrying his beloved Sarah. He was young, destitute for much of his life, criticized by his peers, and often unhappy.

Perhaps the most troubling thing about Poe's death, though, is that the circumstances remain a mystery. A week beforehand, according to Biography, his fiancée expressed concerns about his health, and his doctor told him not to travel. He did, anyway. Strange lapses in Poe's behavior occurred at this time — for example, he completely misplaced his luggage, and was unable to find it — until he was suddenly discovered sprawled out in the gutter outside a voting booth location, according to the Smithsonian, wearing someone else's clothes, unable to move, and screaming at hallucinations. During this pained time, he repeatedly called out for some unknown figure named 'Reynolds,' and died four days later.

What happened? As History explains, many people were quick to blame alcohol, but his attending physician disputed this. Various diseases have been suggested, such as tuberculosis and brain lesions. One of the most prevalent theories, due to the voting booth location where Poe was found, is that he may have been a victim of something called 'cooping,' a horrifying voter fraud scam from the time: cooping occurred when corrupt politicians paid criminals to drug and poison innocent bystanders, particularly the homeless, and then forced them to vote at location after location until they dropped dead.

Edgar Allan Poe couldn't catch a break even in death

Sadly, Edgar Allan Poe's mistreatment did not cease after his death.

According to Biography, his funeral was hastily conducted only a day after his death, resulting in only seven people attending, one of whom had nothing but nasty words about the author. Initially buried in an unmarked grave, it took 11 years for Poe's cousin to purchase a real monument for him, but before the piece could be mounted, it was destroyed when ... uh, a speeding train came off its rails, and crashed directly into the stone carver's place of business. Can't make this stuff up. It took nearly three decades before an assembly of students and teachers collected the funds to give Poe the monument he deserved, and even then, his coffin accidentally shattered to pieces during the transfer. Seriously?

It was around this same time that, finally, Poe's deceased wife was buried beside him: until that point, her remains had been placed in their landlord's family cemetery, which had subsequently been built over by developers. Since then, thankfully, both of them have remained in their rightful place.

Edgar Allan Poe's biggest hater shaped his legacy

Much of the darker Edgar Allan Poe legends and myths that circulate today, sadly, stem not from the writer's life, but his obituary. This mean-spirited block of text was penned by the Reverend Rufus Griswold. The not-so-holy man wrote this obituary under the pen name Ludwig, and he made sure it was filled with outright slander that portrayed Poe as being the drunken, drug-addicted, unsavory character that many still paint him as today.

Griswold, as one might imagine, had a personal reason for besmirching the dead, as explained by the Poe Museum. Over the years, the two men had gone back and forth between being friends, enemies, and literary rivals, and Poe's public critiques of Griswold's work, when he was running his magazine The Messenger, did not go forgotten. Now, in the 21st century, any writer should be advised not to get antsy about negative reviews: they happen, and it's okay. Griswold, though, was such a bitter little man that he followed his nasty, deceptive obituary an equally nasty, deceptive biography about Poe's entire life.

Ironically, Griswold's portrait of Poe as a dark, disturbed figure ended up increasing his enemy's posthumous fame, while Griswold himself has now become a mere footnote in literary history ... which is, frankly, an appropriate fate for such a major league jerk.

Edgar Allan Poe has not been forgotten

In life, Edgar Allan Poe did not receive the full recognition he deserved. In death, though, he has been hailed as America's Shakespeare, according to American Heritage Trees, and many of the lies that 'Ludwig' spread about him have been publicly dismissed. There are museums and societies dedicated to Poe's life, and works like 'The Pit and the Pendulum' were probably your favorite stories that you studied in high school English.

Perhaps the most amazing tribute to Poe's legacy was the example set by an anonymous person identified as 'the Poe Toaster.' From 1948 until 2009, according to the Smithsonian, this masked figure rose from the shadows once a year, on the anniversary of Poe's birthday, to leave a bottle of cognac and three red roses on the author's grave. Who was the Poe Toaster? Nobody knows. The Poe Toaster never sought fame or attention, even as an increasingly large crowd of onlookers began taking note of his annual ritual, and it is believed that the original Toaster may have actually retired in 1999, passing the mantle down to his son.

The 2009 end of this tradition, it is speculated, may be due to increased media attention. These days, frankly, all grand mysteries tend to get killed by Twitter and Facebook. That said, this tradition has been continued by the Maryland Historical Society, who now send their own Poe Toaster to the author's grave every year, to pay their respects to one of dark literature's greatest champions.