Scots Gothic: A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe in Ayrshire

A Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe in Ayrshire After Edgar Poe lost both his parents as a child, he was taken in by the family of a Virginia tobacco merchant, John Allan. When Edgar was six, the Allan family came to Irvine for an extended visit. Billy Kay discovers the Ayrshire of 'ghaists an houlets', 'witches and warlocks', bodysnatchers, premature burials and cannibals - and asks whether Poe's macabre imagination took fire in this cauldron of Scots Gothic.