Now that Baltimore has announced its celebration of the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, I feel better. But I was perturbed that the U.S. Postal Service would choose to issue a new Poe stamp in Richmond, Va., of all places. Bad enough that we have to protect our northern flank against grave-robbers; now we have to bolster the Southern flank, too?

Here's how the USPS describes the Poe stamp, to be issued Jan. 16: "For more than a century and a half, Poe and his works have been praised by admirers around the world, including English poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who dubbed Poe 'the literary glory of America.' British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called him 'the supreme original short story writer of all time.' "

The stamp portrait of Edgar Allan Poe is by award-winning artist Michael J. Deas, whose research over the years has made him well acquainted with Poe’s appearance. In 1989, Deas published The Portraits and Daguerreotypes of Edgar Allan Poe, a comprehensive collection of images featuring authentic likenesses as well as derivative portraits.