Edgar's Window

by John Sheehan

The Legend of a In the year 1848, according to the rumors, Edgar Allan Poe spent three nights in a windowless room at Madam Clegbourne’s boarding house at 72 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. Madam Clegbourne, a well known spiritualist in the village claimed to her friends that Mr. Poe had drawn a window on the wall of one of her rooms in charcoal and that she had discovered that it was a portal to the spirit world. A year later, upon learning of Mr. Poe’s untimely death in a Baltimore hospital, Madam Clegbourne set up a candle lit shrine to the late poet and forbade anyone to enter the Poe room other than herself. Nine years later, in March of 1857, the Clegbourne Boarding House became the scene of a series of diabolical murders, ghostly visitations and strange disappearances that would disrupt the lives of the motley collection of boarders who had the misfortune to live at the house at the time of the haunting. Rose Devlin, the only female among the boarders, is a struggling actress who is put upon by the Madam’s stepson, Donovan O’Mara. Is it the evil forces unleashed by the window or the passions of jealous anger and revenge that lead to a desperate game of cat and mouse among the various boarders?Included with this e-book are three illustrations and a graphic created by the author. These include the cover and an inside plate that offers a setting map of Greenwich Village and the Clegbourne Block. Also included is a second plate of the Clegbourne Block and a theatre playbill from 1857 London stage.

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2010