Edgar Allan Poe's only long fiction has provoked intense scholarly discussions about its meaning since its first publication. The novel relates the adventures of Pym after he stows away on a whaling ship, where he endures starvation, encounters with cannibals, a whirlpool, and finally a journey to an Antarctic sea. It draws on the conventions of travel writing and science fiction, and on Poe's own experiences at sea, but is ultimately in a category of its own.

Appendices include virtually all of the contemporary sources of exploration and south polar navigation that Poe consulted and adapted to the narrative, together with reviews and notices of Pym and a sampling of responses to the novel from a wide array of authors, from Herman Melville and Charles Baudelaire to H.P. Lovecraft and Toni Morrison. Seven illustrations are also included.

Comments:

"This new edition of Poe's only completed novel represents a welcome option for instructors. The edition features a comprehensive critical introduction detailing the history of Pym scholarship and critical approaches, a detailed chronology of Poe's life, and three valuable appendices that reprint Poe's most important literary sources, a healthy selection of contemporary reviews, and responses by other writers such as Melville and James. The selection of sources and reviews will delight instructors eager to teach the novel in its nineteenth-century context." – Leland S. Person, University of Cincinnati

"This scrupulously prepared, thorough, and extremely useful edition of Poe's only novel will thrill students, instructors, and general Poe aficionados in equal measure. Indeed, the map of Pym's voyage, incredibly appearing here for the first time, is worth the price of admission alone! The developed and informative introduction, meticulous footnotes, well-considered bibliography, and carefully selected appendices combine to offer a model of accessible and impressive scholarship ideal for the classroom or for the general reader of Poe. Even experts are likely to glean new insights from this top-notch edition." – Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan University

The late Frederick S. Frank was Professor Emeritus of English at Allegheny College. He published widely on Gothic literature and was the editor of the Broadview Edition of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother. Diane Long Hoeveler is Professor of English at Marquette University.

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Edgar Allan Poe: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Text

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Appendix A: Sources for the Novel

1. William Falconer, A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine
2. Captain Cook and James King, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean
3. R. Thomas, Remarkable Shipwrecks, A Collection of Interesting Accounts of Naval Disasters
4. John Cleves Symmes, Symzonia: A Voyage of Discovery by Captain Adam Seaborn
5. William Scoresby, Jr., Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery
6. James McBride, Symmes's Theory of the Concentric Spheres
7. Jeremiah N. Reynolds, Remarks on a Review of Symmes' Theory
8. William Lay and Cyrus Hussey, A Mutiny on Board the Whaleship Globe of Nantucket
9. Lieutenant Hiram Paulding, Journal of a Cruise of the United States Schooner Dolphin in Pursuit of the Mutineers of the Whaleship Globe
10. Jane Porter, Sir Edward Seaward's Narrative of His Shipwreck
11. Benjamin Morrell, A Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Sea, North and South Pacific Ocean from the Year 1822 to 1831
12. Archibald Duncan, The Mariner's Chronicle
13. Jeremiah N. Reynolds, The Voyage of the Potomac
14. Washington Irving, Astoria; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains
15. Jeremiah N. Reynolds, Address on the Subject of a Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas
16. Jeremiah N. Reynolds, "Leaves from an Unpublished Journal"

Appendix B: Selected Contemporary Reviews and Notices

Appendix C: Other Writers' Responses to Pym

1. Herman Melville: from Moby Dick; from Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile
2. Charles Baudelaire: from Les Fleurs du mal, "La Géante," "Le Voyage"; From "Un Voyage a Cythère"
3. Jules Verne: from Le Sphinx des glaces
4. Henry James: from The Golden Bowl
5. J.K. Huysmans: from à Rebours
6. H.G. Wells: from The Time Machine; from The First Men in the Moon
7. H. P. Lovecraft: from At the Mountains of Madness
8. Paul Valéry: "Sinistra"
9. Carlos Fuentes: from Terra Nostra
10. Toni Morrison: from "Romancing the Shadow," Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

Select Bibliography