Edgar Allan Poe’s black-and-white photographs feel compatible with his writings, not only in context but in style. Yet when looking at a color version of “The Raven” writer, he seems much more like our eccentric uncle who is into live-action role-playing than the man who wrote in “The Tell-Tale Heart.” A color photo of Poe invokes his humanity, which is probably more fitting, as the subject matter he wrote about was of some of the most dramatic in human existence: death, loss of love, mystery, murder, and the isolating feeling of slipping into severe mental illness. “I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him,” he wrote in the previously mentioned story.

Poe died at just 40 years old on October 7, 1839. According to Smithsonian Magazine, his cause of death was swelling of the brain, but the reason for that swelling has never been determined. Just weeks before he died, he had a daguerreotype made. Swann Galleries describes the photo as seeming to “portend his premature and lonely death just three weeks later,” calling out Poe’s “deep-set eyes” and “disheveled dress” — as only hindsight can.  A recently colorized version of Poe taken in June that same year (pictured above) has a similar quality. There is a sad vacancy in the eyes, under which bags give the impression of a man who hasn’t been sleeping well. Still, his hair looks like he may have just rolled out of bed, making the updated version, unfortunately, intrinsically more relatable.