The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

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When Edgar Allan Poe’s only novella was first published in 1838, the reviews were slow in coming and dismissive when they arrived. The book’s failure left Poe in such dire financial straits that he even accepted a job at one of the magazines that had panned it. But The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket has since become one of his most influential works: Baudelaire translated it, Paul Theroux read it out loud to Jorge Luis Borges, Jules Verne wrote a sequel to it, H. P. Lovecraft drew on it in creating his own tales of the Antarctic . . .

Ostensibly, it’s a classic adventure story about a young boy who runs away to sea and encounters all the…

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August 13, 2013

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EDGAR ALLAN POE was born the son of itinerant actors in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809. A year after his birth, his father abandoned the family, and his mother died of tuberculosis. Poe was taken into foster care by John Allan, a successful merchant in Richmond, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia for a year, but left after running up severe gambling debts, which led to an estrangement from his foster family. In 1827, while a private in the U.S. Army, he published his first book of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. After his discharge, he pursued a literary career and found editorial jobs at a series of periodicals, including the Southern Literary Messenger, which serialized The Narrative of Arthur…