New Old Words

Have you ever heard of the word outré? It means unusual and startling.

I wasn’t shocked to hear this word while listening to Sherlock Mondays podcast dissecting A Case of Identity in which Holmes and Watson solve the case of Miss Mary Sutherland’s missing fiancé Hosmer Angel. I started reading Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 11 and am still trying to deduce their full meaning.

Podcast host Edward Pettit, a librarian at The Rosenbach museum in Philadelphia, theorized that Doyle wanted to employ this eccentric and exotic word outré in his story after recently reading it in an Edgar Allan Poe story.

Poe is another of my favorite authors. I consider him a gothic genius and master of dark romantic works and poems. The Poe National Historic Site, 532 N. Seventh St., was one of the first national parks I visited in Philadelphia, after Independence Hall. During our Poe house tour, the park ranger recited a riveting rendition of The Black Cat, while standing in front of a brick wall.

Outside the house is a majestic raven statue guarding the house. The Raven, published in 1845, brought Poe great fame. Earlier this fall, a customer roaming through the bookstore where I volunteer, stopped to admire a framed raven print. We started to talk about Poe.

“Do you know the name of the raven in the poem?” he asked with a tinkle in his eye.

I didn’t know the bird had a name.

“Grip,” he said. Then he said Poe was inspired to write the poem after meeting Charles Dickens’ pet raven named Grip. The two men didn’t like one another, he added, but didn’t tell me why.

“I’ve seen Grip at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Look it up,” he said.

The customer was right, the Free Library owns Grip who is displayed in the Rare Book Department and anyone who makes an appointment can meet the renown raven. The library’s website also confirmed that Dickens visited Poe when he came to Philadelphia in 1842.

What an outré meeting that must have been.