The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

This mesmerizing tale of terror at sea is now available in a richly contextualized edition. Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel has provoked intense debates 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 iceless 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. The 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. Nineteen illustrations are also included.