One of the best-kept secrets in Boston's literary history concerns the most influential writer ever born here: Edgar Allan Poe. And the secret is this: he was born here! Over the past 200 years, leading up to the bicentennial of Poe's birth on January 19, 2009, his connections to other East Coast cities—Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York—have been celebrated and memorialized. While each of these cities hosts a museum or historic house that commemorates Poe's standing as a local author, Boston has made itself conspicuous for its apparent determination to treat the master of mystery—America's first great critic and a foundational figure in the development of popular culture—like an undeserving orphan. This attitude is all the more fascinating because it can be traced back to the antebellum period, involves a war of words as snarky as any from that time, and is based on a misunderstanding of the importance of Boston to Poe's development. It turns out that both Poe the baby and Poe the writer and critic were born in the same place.

Mounted at the end of the Poe bicentennial year, The Raven in the Frog Pond uses materials from the Boston Public Library's collections and elsewhere to tell the story of Poe's relation to the city of his birth. In its approach to Poe biography, the exhibit reviews the facts and presents information about Poe's time here. It engages urban legends that have grown up around the Poe-Boston story. It considers what Boston has done or failed to do to celebrate this native author. And it takes a close look at Poe's quarrel with Boston literary figures, seeing it as both a personal conflict and a turning point in the development of American culture.