Poe's Life in Boston

THE CURFEW and other productions
"For the Benefit of Mr. and Mrs. Poe"
A Boston Theatre playbill
May 22, 1807

A playbill describing an evening of entertainment featuring performances by Eliza and David Poe and their fellow actor and friend Mr. Luke Usher.
It seems likely that, in Boston's still nascent theater scene, Eliza and David would have had to deal with the remains of Puritan anxiety about deriving pleasure from literary work (drama) just as their son would later contend with highbrow Bostonian authors of his time.�

Courtesy of the Harvard College Library
Houghton Library, Harvard Theatre Collection