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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With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.