The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

The only full-length novel of Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is a tale that is as strange as it is adventurous, as comical as it is horrifying, and just about as Poe as it gets.

Initially intended to be a realistic tale, the adventure of the titular Arthur, a stowaway aboard the whaling ship Grampus, is always turning stranger and harder to define, Poe's powerful imagination leaking into the cracked hull of the narrative and flooding it slowly with enigmatic characters and nightmarish situations. The ship is beset by mutineers, only to be smashed apart by a storm. While clinging to life amongst the driftwood, a ship crewed by corpses passes them by before their salvation comes in a simple schooner. Off the southern tip of South America, hostile tribes are found amongst a lost set of islands. Ancient secrets mark the walls of an infinite cave system, and beyond the end of the world an ashen reaper glides across bone-white seas. While described by the author himself as "a very silly book," the narrative has influenced many celebrated storytellers like Herman Melville, Jules Verne, and H.P. Lovecraft.

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Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American poet, short story writer, and editor. Born in Boston to a family of actors, Poe was abandoned by his father in 1810 before being made an orphan with the death of his mother the following year. Raised in Richmond, Virginia by the Allan family of merchants, Poe struggled with gambling addiction and frequently fought with his foster parents over debts. He attended the University of Virginia for a year before withdrawing due to a lack of funds, enlisting in the US Army in 1827. That same year, Poe anonymously published Tamerlane and Other Poems, his first collection. After failing to graduate from West Point, Poe began working for several literary journals as a critic and editor, moving from Richmond to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. In 1836, he obtained a special license to marry Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin, who moved with him as he pursued his career in publishing. In 1838, Poe published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a tale of a stowaway on a whaling ship and his only novel. In 1842, Virginia began showing signs of consumption, and her progressively worsening illness drove Poe into deep depression and alcohol addiction. The Raven (1845) appeared in the Evening Mirror on January 29th. It was an instant success, propelling Poe to the forefront of the American literary scene and earning him a reputation as a leading Romantic. Following Virginia’s death in 1847, Poe became despondent, overwhelmed with grief and burdened with insurmountable debt. Suffering from worsening mental and physical illnesses, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore in 1849 and died only days later. He is now recognised as a literary pioneer who made important strides in developing techniques essential to horror, detective, and science fiction.