The love affair of gothic poet Edgar Allan Poe and eccentric poetess Sarah Helen Whitman is a tale of fatalistic love, filled with wild emotion, fantasy and spirituality. The story weaves itself among the historic corners of Providence, Rhode Island where the two courted and declared their love for each other. One can still feel the presence of the ill-fated lovers when walking through the lanterned streets of the East Side of the city, through the rows of time-honored books in the Athaneum's halls, and through the winding roads of North Burial Ground where the two often met to share intimacies; places where the lovers would revel in happiness and despair in sorrow; where they would test fate and discover their destiny.

Although Poe was familiar with Mrs. Whitman's poetry, he had not laid eyes upon her until one evening while walking down Benefit Street during one of his many visits to Providence, Edgar chanced upon the beautiful poetess in her garden.

"I yielded at once, to an overwhelming sense of Fatality. From that hour I have never been able to shake from my soul the belief that my Destiny, for good or for evil, either here or hereafter, is in some measure interwoven with your own."

Sarah Helen Whitman, a revered poet in her own right, was the widow of a Massachusetts lawyer. Upon her husband's death, she moved to Providence where she lived with her hard-tempered, New England mother. She was beautiful in appearance and very much aware of the latest fashions. She typically wore veils and shawls and adorned her neck with a tiny, hand-carved, dark-wood coffin attached to a black ribbon. She was a firm believer in the spiritual world of the occult and was known to have mystical mood swings. She strongly opposed the excessive use of alcohol but often drugged herself with ether. She was greatly influenced by the opinions of friends, a characteristic that would contribute to the destruction of the fateful romance with Poe.