POE. In keeping with his tales of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe is among the most spectacular of literary deaths (of course Percey Shelley and the burning heart thing is a close second). Poe was found on the ground outside a Baltimore pub, mumbling and screaming obscenities. His death was attributed to alcohol abuse, but there is sufficent evidence to doubt this. Hindsight suggests that Poe had Rabies. Gruesome, huh? The theory was either that he was bitten by a bat or a rat. After an initial coma, Poe came to and spoke lucidly to hospital personnel. Then another downward spiral had him increasingly delusional and needing to be restrained in a straight jacket. Hannibal Lecter comes to mind. To support the rabid theory, Poe had bouts of confusion, eradic pulse rate and hydrophobia, the fear of water. He was so afraid in his delusions that he could not even drink!

"I opened it - you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily - until, at length a single dim ray...fell full upon the vulture eye."

The Tell-Tale Heart
- Edgar Allan Poe