Product Description

After reading an 1836 newspaper account of a shipwreck and its two survivors, Edgar Allan Poe penned his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the story of a stowaway on a Nantucket whaleship who finds himself enmeshed in the dark side of life at sea: mutiny, cannibalism, savagery—even death. As Jeffrey Meyers writes in his Introduction: “[Poe] remains contemporary because he appeals to basic human feelings and expresses universal themes common to all men in all languages: dreams, love, loss; grief, mourning, alienation; terror, revenge, murder; insanity, disease, and death.” Within the pages of this novel, we encounter nearly all of them.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic reprints the text of the original 1838 American edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1449197 in Books
• Published on: 1975-01-01
• Released on: 1975-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Ingram
Set in 1827, this tale is an exciting blend of romantic adventure and realistic detail. The young hero, Pym, aided by Augustus, the captain's son, becomes a stowaway.

From the Back Cover
“It is Poe’s greatest work.”—Jorge Luis Borges

About the Author
Jeffrey Meyers, a distinguished biographer, is the author of Edgar Allan Poe, D. H. Lawrence, and Joseph Conrad, among others. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Customer Reviews

A Rare and Fantastic Adventure
From the beginning when our hero finds himself in the dark coffin like hiding place in the hold of a ship sailing to Antartica to the bizzare ending ,Poes genius takes us on an incredible and horrific adventure.Even if you are not a horror fan you should give this excellent novel a try.

A Wonderful Sailor's Tale
Arthur Gordon Pym was a young man who had dreams of great adventure. He defied his family and stowed away on board a whaling ship. Doing this lead him into all sorts of exciting adventures. He confronted things like mutiny, near starvation, and altercations with different cultures.

I'd have to say that this story is "classic Poe". If you are a fan of Poe's short stories, you'll definitely like this book. I only had a few problems with the story. There were times that the story dragged, but this is far outweighed by the times that the story was very exciting, and I couldn't put the book down. I won't go into the ending, but it left me unsettled.

I found that the explanatory notes were very helpful. I'm not a great scholar on any level, nor will I ever claim to be. The explanatory notes were very simple to understand, and it helped me understand portions of the story that caused confusion, particularly the end.

An American Classic. A Horror Classic.
Poe's only novel reminded me of Gogol's "Dead Souls," in that, in both, the story seems to take a weird turn toward the end and shuts down rather oddly. Gogol's excuse is that he became a fire-breathing convert to Christianity midway through writing his book, and so had no use for the book's initial cynical tone (instead we get a character rant on in socio-religious mode for awhile). I don't know what Poe's excuse is, but the effect of his end-of-story turn is remarkable, and I won't spoil it for you (unlike other reviewers below - warning!). There is a vivid, dreamlike, unsettling quality to the whole book, and (with the exception of a few dull pages of sailing life detail - not unlike "Moby Dick," but with nowhere near as much page-filling excess) there is rip-roaring action from start to finish. Poe's yarn is full of incident, and every bit of it counts. So at midnight, lock the door, sit back, put your feet up, and soak up this book in the dim light of your hurricane lamp. It's, after all, one of many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore!