Original photo by Patti McConville/ Alamy Stock Photo
In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe temporarily departed from the usual brevity of his short stories and completed his first novel — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It was also his last novel. Now considered the beginnings of the science fiction and detective genres, Poe’s works are best known for macabre plots that consistently feature the supernatural, and Arthur Gordon Pym is no different. Written five years before Poe published some of his most popular works — including "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Tell-Tale Heart" — Poe’s only novel was set at sea, recounting the adventures of a New Englander named Arthur Gordon Pym who stows away on a ship. Upon leaving land, Pym suffers a series of misadventures, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism.
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It's a factPoe loved ciphers, and embedded them in stories such as “The Gold-Bug.” At one point, the author — who collected and solved reader-submitted puzzles while working for a newspaper — even contacted the federal government about a code-cracking job, though there were no vacancies.
Despite the fact that Poe had experienced some previous literary success, his novel was received harshly. That was in part because of the political quagmire of American slavery; at the time the novel was published, the abolition movement was gaining momentum, and scenes in Arthur Gordon Pym seemed to reflect then-bubbling social tensions. Many literary critics interpreted the story and its symbols, including a clash between white sailors and Black islanders, as a political statement about the evils of slavery; others dismissed Poe’s novel for its depictions of violence. Some readers, believing the book was based on a true story, were upset to find it was fiction, and declared it a hoax. Given its poor reception, Poe returned to the short story format and wrote off his own novel, calling it a “very silly book.”
But not everyone considered Poe’s book a flop. Literary historians believe it was likely read by author Herman Melville, and may have served as inspiration for Melville’s book Moby-Dick (published in 1851). Over time, reviews of Arthur Gordon Pym softened, and in 1897, author Jules Vern wrote a two-volume sequel called An Antarctic Mystery, continuing on with Poe’s supernatural story nearly 60 years after it first went to press.
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Poe may have earned only $15 for his most famous poem, “______.”
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Poe may have earned only $15 for his most famous poem, “The Raven.”
While he was alive, Poe’s bestselling work was about seashells.
Edgar Allan Poe achieved literary fame for his dark and brooding tales, though his bestselling book while he was alive was actually a reworked textbook. In 1839, Poe was hired to condense the Manual of Conchology; the book’s author, Thomas Wyatt, was a lecturer and teacher who believed his initial text was too expensive and detailed for everyday readers. Wyatt looked to produce an abridged version that he could market to children and other shell-collecting beginners, though his publisher disagreed, believing a simpler version would cut into profits. Wyatt proceeded anyway, selecting Poe for the secret job, unbeknownst to his publisher. The Baltimore poet reshuffled the diagrams and text in a new order, wrote a new introduction, and added his own name to the front cover with Wyatt’s insistence — though the book remained so similar to its original that Poe was accused of plagiarism and blacklisted from at least one publishing house. Nevertheless, The Conchologist’s First Book was an instant hit, selling out its first edition in two months, and prompting two updated versions that collectively outsold any of Poe’s original works during his lifetime.
Nicole Garner Meeker is a writer and editor based in St. Louis. Her history, nature, and food stories have also appeared at Mental Floss and Better Report.
