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Edgar Allan Poe’s story is part of the love story of Stephanie Griffin-Hufford and her husband.

She didn’t know much about the famous American writer when she first came to Richmond to meet the man she had gotten to know over the phone. The Edgar Allan Poe Museum was one of the first places her future husband, Robert Hufford, took her to see.

“We have a Poe room in the house now,” she said.

So it was only natural that the couple — she dressed in a Poe-themed sweatshirt — would celebrate Poe’s birthday at the museum on Saturday, an annual tradition for the couple, who were married in 2010.

The annual 12-hour event, which was first held in 2001, included dramatic readings, walking tours of Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill, musical performances, cake cutting and a midnight toast to ring in the horror and mystery writer’s birthday, Jan. 19.

It was also the opening day for the museum’s newest exhibit examining six women in Poe’s life who could have been the subject of Poe’s famous love poem, “Annabel Lee.”

It wasn’t a “Poe day” to celebrate the 205th anniversary of the poet’s birth, though — it was much too sunny for that, said Hal Poe, whose great-great grandfather was Edgar Allan Poe’s cousin.