The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET
Edgar Allan Poe
Copyright
William Collins
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Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Gerard Cheshire asserts his moral right as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from
Collins English Dictionary
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Cover image: Catching Whales, 1875, Rasmussen, J. E. Carl (1841 – 93) / Private Collection / Photo © Gavin Graham Gallery, London, UK / Bridgeman Images
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History of Collins
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Life & Times
About the Author
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer of fantastical, bizarre and sometimes disturbing short stories. He lived and worked in the first half of the 19th century and died a mysterious death, many believe caused by an overdose of drugs, at the age of 40. It seems likely that Poe was himself inclined towards obsessive and unbalanced behaviour. As a child his father abandoned the family and his mother died shortly thereafter, leaving him an orphan. He was taken in by the Allan family; however, they endured a strained relationship and he became estranged from them when he failed to complete university and then to become an army officer. For the years that followed, he wrote poetry and then prose, contributing to and working for many periodicals and journals of the time. For the most part of his career, Poe was known for being a literary critic rather than an author. In 1835, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin in secret, and 10 years later wrote perhaps his most well-known poem, ‘The Raven’.
Poe’s work is usually described as ‘Gothic’ in style, as he alludes to the macabre, grotesque and horrifying. Poe used the phrase ‘terrors of the soul’ in explaining the primary focus of investigation in his prose and poetry. He was clearly preoccupied with delving into the darker reaches of the human psyche to see what he could find.
In the 1960s he became an influence on British pop music due to his highly imaginative literary imagery. The Beatles included a portrait of Poe on the cover of their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and John Lennon mentions Poe in the song ‘I Am The Walrus’, released later that same year. The Beatles were heavily influenced by experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and many felt that reading Poe’s work was akin to the kind of psychological experiences elicited by hallucinogens. It may have been that Poe used them himself to enter his unique literary realm.
His Works
Tales of Mystery and Imagination was first compiled and published in 1908, some 59 years after Poe’s untimely death. There had been other canons of his writing, but this one focused specifically on the darker side of his work, omitting poetry and comic prose. Perhaps the most regarded of the short stories therein is The Murders in the Rue Morgue, originally published in 1841. In this story Poe invents the first literary detective, named Auguste Dupin, who sets about solving the mysterious double murder of a Parisian lady and her daughter in a street named Rue Morgue (Mortuary Street). A man has been wrongly accused and Dupin, having found an auburn-coloured hair, deduces a most unlikely culprit. Further investigation shows Dupin to be correct. The story is the first example of a fictional crime solved by the principle of deduction based on ingenuity, evidence and reason. It set the benchmark for later literary detectives, such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, originally published in 1839, Poe delves into matters of psychological illness, with the central character Roderick Usher, suffering from all manner of mental disturbances. In Poe’s day, psychiatry had not yet defined specific conditions, but Roderick Usher had overly sensitive physical senses, an obsession with getting ill and was filled with extreme angst and anxiety about life. These days these symptoms would be classified respectively as hyperaesthesia, hypochondria and hysteria. Roderick Usher lives in large house, where his sister has recently died and awaits being interred in the family tomb. The narrator of the story has come to stay with Roderick and witnesses various spooky events, whilst Roderick himself grows increasingly disturbed. The narrator reads Roderick a story to distract him, but this only serves to make things worse as the events in the story seem to embody themselves elsewhere in the house, and the narrator flees in fright.
His first critical success came when he published his famous narrative poem ‘The Raven’ in 1845. Again, it was an exploration into mental illness and madness. In 1847 his wife Clemm died of tuberculosis. She had been with Poe for 12 years and when she died Poe went into a decline. He became depressed and apathetic, turned to alcohol, and only a few years later came to the end of his own life. A man named Joseph Walker had found Poe walking the streets of Baltimore in an incoherent and distressed condition. He was taken to hospital but his condition worsened and he died four days later. He had never been lucid enough to explain what had happened to him just prior to his death.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poe’s only completed novel, a collection of ponderings which form an adventurous ocean journey.
Published in 1838, the novel is now regarded as a prototype for the genre, influencing authors such as Jules Verne and Herman Melville. Poe was writing in the mid-nineteenth century, when explorers were expanding the limits of the known world and sharing exotic myths, legends and artifacts from their travels. The interiors of Africa and South America were not yet mapped, and Antarctica was yet to be explored at all. To many readers, and especially to those of the nineteenth-century, there is something thrilling about the idea of embarking on an expedition into the unknown.
The novel structure was not yet fully established when Poe was writing, and this gave an opportunity for experimentation with form and style. The novel is written in a free-form manner, almost as if the tale is a sequence of dreams hurriedly scribbled down upon awaking. Poe eventually found that the short-story format was better suited to his style (see ‘His Works’), and he is probably best known for these, and for his narrative poem ‘The Raven’.
Some regarded The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket as the work of genius, while others dismissed it as the ramblings of madness, and this polarized view of the novel persists to this day. Poe himself later disparagingly mentioned his novel in a letter: ‘You once wrote in your magazine a sharp critique upon a book of mine – a very silly book – Pym.’
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
History of Collins
Life & Times
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Note
Notes
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases
About the Publisher
PREFACE
Upon my return to the United States a few months ago, after the extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere, of which an account is given in the following pages, accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond, Va., who felt deep interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public. I had several reasons, however, for declining to do so, some of which were of a nature altogether private, and concern no person but myself; others not so much so. One consideration which deterred me was that, having kept no journal during a greater portion of the time in which I was absent, I feared I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess, barring only the natural and unavoidable exaggeration to which all of us are prone when detailing events which have had powerful influence in exciting the imaginative faculties. Another reason was, that the incidents to be narrated were of a nature so positively marvellous that, unsupported as my assertions must necessarily be (except by the evidence of a single individual, and he a half-breed Indian), I could only hope for belief among my family, and those of my friends who have had reason, through life, to put faith in my veracity-the probability being that the public at large would regard what I should put forth as merely an impudent and ingenious fiction. A distrust in my own abilities as a writer was, nevertheless, one of the principal causes which prevented me from complying with the suggestions of my advisers.
Among those gentlemen in Virginia who expressed the greatest interest in my statement, more particularly in regard to that portion of it which related to the Antarctic Ocean, was Mr. Poe, lately editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” a monthly magazine, published by Mr. Thomas W. White, in the city of Richmond. He strongly advised me, among others, to prepare at once a full account of what I had seen and undergone, and trust to the shrewdness and common-sense of the public-insisting, with great plausibility, that however roughly, as regards mere authorship, my book should be got up, its very uncouthness, if there were any, would give it all the better chance of being received as truth.
Notwithstanding this representation, I did not make up my mind to do as he suggested. He afterward proposed (finding that I would not stir in the matter) that I should allow him to draw up, in his own words, a narrative of the earlier portion of my adventures, from facts afforded by myself, publishing it in the “Southern Messenger” under the garb of fiction. To this, perceiving no objection, I consented, stipulating only that my real name should be retained. Two numbers of the pretended fiction appeared, consequently, in the “Messenger” for January and February (1837), and, in order that it might certainly be regarded as fiction, the name of Mr. Poe was affixed to the articles in the table of contents of the magazine.
The manner in which this ruse was received has induced me at length to undertake a regular compilation and publication of the adventures in question; for I found that, in spite of the air of fable which had been so ingeniously thrown around that portion of my statement which appeared in the “Messenger” (without altering or distorting a single fact), the public were still not at all disposed to receive it as fable, and several letters were sent to Mr. P.’s address, distinctly expressing a conviction to the contrary. I thence concluded that the facts of my narrative would prove of such a nature as to carry with them sufficient evidence of their own authenticity, and that I had consequently little to fear on the score of popular incredulity.
This exposé being made, it will be seen at once how much of what follows I claim to be my own writing; and it will also be understood that no fact is misrepresented in the first few pages which were written by Mr. Poe. Even to those readers who have not seen the “Messenger,” it will be unnecessary to point out where his portion ends and my own commences; the difference in point of style will be readily perceived.
A. G. Pym
New York, July, 1838
CHAPTER 1
My name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My father was a respectable trader in sea-stores at Nantucket, where I was born. My maternal grandfather was an attorney in good practice. He was fortunate in every thing, and had speculated very successfully in stocks of the Edgarton New Bank, as it was formerly called. By these and other means he had managed to lay by a tolerable sum of money. He was more attached to myself, I believe, than to any other person in the world, and I expected to inherit the most of his property at his death. He sent me, at six years of age, to the school of old Mr. Ricketts, a gentleman with only one arm and of eccentric manners—he is well known to almost every person who has visited New Bedford. I stayed at his school until I was sixteen, when I left him for Mr. E. Ronald’s academy on the hill. Here I became intimate with the son of Mr. Barnard, a sea-captain, who generally sailed in the employ of Lloyd and Vredenburgh—Mr. Barnard is also very well known in New Bedford, and has many relations, I am certain, in Edgarton. His son was named Augustus, and he was nearly two years older than myself. He had been on a whaling voyage with his father in the John Donaldson, and was always talking to me of his adventures in the South Pacific Ocean. I used frequently to go home with him, and remain all day, and sometimes all night. We occupied the same bed, and he would be sure to keep me awake until almost light, telling me stories of the natives of the Island of Tinian, and other places he had visited in his travels. At last I could not help being interested in what he said, and by degrees I felt the greatest desire to go to sea. I owned a sailboat called the Ariel, and worth about seventy-five dollars. She had a half-deck or cuddy, and was rigged sloop-fashion—I forget her tonnage, but she would hold ten persons without much crowding. In this boat we were in the habit of going on some of the maddest freaks in the world; and, when I now think of them, it appears to me a thousand wonders that I am alive to-day.
I will relate one of these adventures by way of introduction to a longer and more momentous narrative. One night there was a party at Mr. Barnard’s, and both Augustus and myself were not a little intoxicated toward the close of it. As usual, in such cases, I took part of his bed in preference to going home. He went to sleep, as I thought, very quietly (it being near one when the party broke up), and without saying a word on his favorite topic. It might have been half an hour from the time of our getting in bed, and I was just about falling into a doze, when he suddenly started up, and swore with a terrible oath that he would not go to sleep for any Arthur Pym in Christendom, when there was so glorious a breeze from the southwest. I never was so astonished in my life, not knowing what he intended, and thinking that the wines and liquors he had drunk had set him entirely beside himself. He proceeded to talk very coolly, however, saying he knew that I supposed him intoxicated, but that he was never more sober in his life. He was only tired, he added, of lying in bed on such a fine night like a dog, and was determined to get up and dress, and go out on a frolic with the boat. I can hardly tell what possessed me, but the words were no sooner out of his mouth than I felt a thrill of the greatest excitement and pleasure, and thought his mad idea one of the most delightful and most reasonable things in the world. It was blowing almost a gale, and the weather was very cold—it being late in October. I sprang out of bed, nevertheless, in a kind of ecstasy, and told him I was quite as brave as himself, and quite as tired as he was of lying in bed like a dog, and quite as ready for any fun or frolic as any Augustus Barnard in Nantucket.
We lost no time in getting on our clothes and hurrying down to the boat. She was lying at the old decayed wharf by the lumber-yard of Pankey & Co., and almost thumping her side out against the rough logs. Augustus got into her and bailed her, for she was nearly half full of water. This being done, we hoisted jib and mainsail, kept full, and started boldly out to sea.
The wind, as I before said, blew freshly from the southwest. The night was very clear and cold. Augustus had taken the helm, and I stationed myself by the mast, on the deck of the cuddy. We flew along at a great rate—neither of us having said a word since casting loose from the wharf. I now asked my companion what course he intended to steer, and what time he thought it probable we should get back. He whistled for a few minutes, and then said crustily: “I am going to sea—you may go home if you think proper.” Turning my eyes upon him, I perceived at once that, in spite of his assumed nonchalance, he was greatly agitated. I could see him distinctly by the light of the moon—his face was paler than any marble, and his hand shook so excessively that he could scarcely retain hold of the tiller. I found that something had gone wrong, and became seriously alarmed. At this period I knew little about the management of a boat, and was now depending entirely upon the nautical skill of my friend. The wind, too, had suddenly increased, as we were fast getting out of the lee of the land—still I was ashamed to betray any trepidation, and for almost half an hour maintained a resolute silence. I could stand it no longer, however, and spoke to Augustus about the propriety of turning back. As before, it was nearly a minute before he made answer, or took any notice of my suggestion. “By-and-by,” said he at length—“time enough—home by-and-by.” I had expected a similar reply, but there was something in the tone of these words which filled me with an indescribable feeling of dread. I again looked at the speaker attentively. His lips were perfectly livid, and his knees shook so violently together that he seemed scarcely able to stand. “For God’s sake, Augustus,” I screamed, now heartily frightened, “what ails you?—what is the matter?—what are you going to do?” “Matter!” he stammered, in the greatest apparent surprise, letting go the tiller at the same moment, and falling forward into the bottom of the boat—“matter—why, nothing is the—matter—going home—d—d—don’t you see?” The whole truth now flashed upon me. I flew to him and raised him up. He was drunk—beastly drunk—he could no longer either stand, speak, or see. His eyes were perfectly glazed; and as I let him go in the extremity of my despair, he rolled like a mere log into the bilge-water, from which I had lifted him. It was evident that, during the evening, he had drunk far more than I suspected, and that his conduct in bed had been the result of a highly-concentrated state of intoxication—a state which, like madness, frequently enables the victim to imitate the outward demeanour of one in perfect possession of his senses. The coolness of the night air, however, had had its usual effect—the mental energy began to yield before its influence—and the confused perception which he no doubt then had of his perilous situation had assisted in hastening the catastrophe. He was now thoroughly insensible, and there was no probability that he would be otherwise for many hours.
It is hardly possible to conceive the extremity of my terror. The fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of managing the boat, and that a fierce wind and strong ebb tide were hurrying us to destruction. A storm was evidently gathering behind us; we had neither compass nor provisions; and it was clear that, if we held our present course, we should be out of sight of land before daybreak. These thoughts, with a crowd of others equally fearful, flashed through my mind with a bewildering rapidity, and for some moments paralyzed me beyond the possibility of making any exertion. The boat was going through the water at a terrible rate—full before the wind—no reef in either jib or mainsail—running her bows completely under the foam. It was a thousand wonders she did not broach to—Augustus having let go the tiller, as I said before, and I being too much agitated to think of taking it myself. By good luck, however, she kept steady, and gradually I recovered some degree of presence of mind. Still the wind was increasing fearfully, and whenever we rose from a plunge forward, the sea behind fell combing over our counter, and deluged us with water. I was so utterly benumbed, too, in every limb, as to be nearly unconscious of sensation. At length I summoned up the resolution of despair, and rushing to the mainsail let it go by the run. As might have been expected, it flew over the bows, and, getting drenched with water, carried away the mast short off by the board. This latter accident alone saved me from instant destruction. Under the jib only, I now boomed along before the wind, shipping heavy seas occasionally over the counter, but relieved from the terror of immediate death. I took the helm, and breathed with greater freedom as I found that there yet remained to us a chance of ultimate escape. Augustus still lay senseless in the bottom of the boat; and as there was imminent danger of his drowning (the water being nearly a foot deep just where he fell), I contrived to raise him partially up, and keep him in a sitting position, by passing a rope round his waist, and lashing it to a ringbolt in the deck of the cuddy. Having thus arranged every thing as well as I could in my chilled and agitated condition, I recommended myself to God, and made up my mind to bear whatever might happen with all the fortitude in my power.