Edgar Allan Poe — “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym”

Reading copy:

• “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” — reading copy

Manuscripts and Authorized Printings:

• Text-01 — “Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1836-1837 (There are no known draft manuscripts or scratch notes reflecting the original effort of composition. Since Poe was, at this point, an editor for the SLM, had no need to impress another editor and would have had the opportunity to work directly with the typesetters, he may not have felt the need for a faircopy manuscript, as would more typically have been the case. Alternatively, Poe may have still wanted a faircopy manuscript for the sake of reducing errors in typesetting. There is no reference in Poe's correspondence that would more closely suggest a date of composition. Indeed, the story is mentioned only once, in a letter of June 1, 1840 to W. E. Burton, in which Poe cites Burton's negative review of what he admitted was “a very silly book.” While there is no reason to expect that there might be a letter that would have documented the date of composition, Poe might have been unusally reticent to spread the word of his authorship of this particular story given his obvious desire to present it as a hoax, as a supposedly true account having been written by the fictional A. G. Pym.)
• Text-02 — “Arthur Gordon Pym” — January-February 1837 — two installments only, Southern Literary Messenger — (Mabbott/Pollin text A)
  • “Arthur Gordon Pym - No I” — January 1837 (includes chapter I and part of chapter II, as published in book form.) (The Poe Log, p. 241, states that the January issue was available after January 26, 1837.)
  • “Arthur Gordon Pym - No II” — February 1837 (includes the remainder of chapter II, all of chapter III and part of chapter IV, as published in book form.) (The Poe Log, p. 243, states that the February issue was available after March 3, 1837.)
• Text-03 — “Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1837-1838
  • Text-03a — “Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1837-1838 (No manuscript or fragments of the full, expanded form are known to exist, but this version is presumably recorded in Text-03b. The Knickerbocker for May 1837 notes the work as “nearly ready for publication,” so most of the writing was probably completed by this time, at least in a rough form. As the publisher was already selected, the delay in actually appearing in print suggests that it was not quite so “nearly ready” as the statement would imply, or that many revisions were being made. The preface is dated as July 1838, which may indicate the approximate date of final revision, or may simply have been updated at the last minute to give the work a current date.)
  • Text-03b — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym   — (July 30) 1838 — PYM — (Mabbott/Pollin text B)  (This is the Mabbott/Pollin copy-text) (The offical date of publication is probably July 30, 1838, as listed in the New York American for July 31, 1838, in an advertisement for Israel Post, which notes the book as being available. The Poe Log, pp. 248-249, states that the American edition was in print on July 30, 1838.)
  • Text-03c — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym   — August-September 1838 — PYM — (For the British printing, it is likely that copies were sent to London of printed pages from the American book, Text-03b, probably unbound. On these pages, an editor in England imposed further modifications, including trimming the ending, while typesetters presumably adopted the British spellings.)
  • Text-03d — The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym — (October) 1838 — (Mabbott/Pollin text C)  (Pirated British reprint by Wiley & Putnam of “B” introduces British spellings, cuts the ending, and adds a few sentences to the preface. The Poe Log, p. 256, states that the British edition was in print in October 1838.)
• Text-04 — “Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1838-1849
  • Text-04a — The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym  — a presumed marked copy of Text-04, a revision started but probably not carried to completion, most likley 1838-1840 — PYM — (Pollin does not accept the possibility that Griswold had a copy revised by Poe) — assuming this copy did exist, it is now apparently lost, but presumably recorded in Text-04b. Burton R. Pollin and Joseph Ridgely were very much in disagreement about whether or not the Griswold text included at least some authorial changes; Ridgely did think so and Pollin did not.)
  • Text-04b — “Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1856 — WORKS — (Mabbott/Pollin text E)

Reprints:

• “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1841 — Novel Newspaper (a pirated reprint of Text-03d)
• “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1856 — (another pirated reprint of Text-03d, omitting the preface)
• “Pym's Narrative” — 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine (London, UK) (8 installments, an adaptation of the first 13 chapters, about the first half, of Pym, omitting the preface and with some minor editorial tinkering) (neither Poe nor the source for the text are noted, and it is somewhat adapated from the full version.)
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part I — January 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 1, pp. 1-8. (with a fairly generic woodcut illustration, described in the table of contents as “leaving Nantucket”
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part II — February 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 2, pp. 42-48.
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part III — March 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 3, pp. 75-80.
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part IV — April 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 4, pp. 118-124.
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part V — May 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 5, pp. 139-144. (several paragraphs of Chapter 7 are collected as “Laying to,” a separate article in the same issue, pp. 157-158, and without attribution to Poe or to the story from which it was excised. It is probably not entirely coincidental that the installment of the story in this issue draws mostly from the nearby Chapter 8 of Pym. In the table of contents for the volume, “Laying to” is listed under the general heading of “Miscellaenous Articles.”)
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part VI — June 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 6, pp. 180-184.
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part VII — July 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 7, pp. 212-216.
  • “Pym's Narrative” — part VIII — August 1857 — Boy's Own Magazine vol. III, no. 8, pp. 251-254.
• Wonderful Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym — 1861 — London: W. Kent, part of Kent's “Shilling Standard Library” (This text is based on Griswold's, Text-04b)
• “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1867 — Prose Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, second series (New York: W. J. Widdleton), pp. 200-378 (This collection is extracted from the 1850-1856 edition of Poe's Works. It was reprinted several times.)
• “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1874 — Works of Edgar A. Poe, edited by J. H. Ingram (vol. II, pp. 1-188) (This collection was subsequently reprinted in various forms) (Although printed in England, Ingram follows Griswold's text, with the original ending, although adopting British spellings throughout.)
• “Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1888 — The Complete Poetical Works and Essays on Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. John H. Ingram, London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co. (pp. 193-384) (According to the “Preface,” Ingram included “Poe's one complete romance” for the sake of making the book “uniform in bulk with other volumes of the series.”)
• Arthur Gordon Pym: A Romance — 1898 — London: Downey & Co. (Illustrated by A. D. McCormack)  (This publisher apparently decided that Poe's title was far too long)
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, ed. Sidney Kaplan — 1960 — New York: Hill and Wang
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym — 1973 — Boston, MA: David R. Godine (with an introduction by Richard Wilbur and illustrations by Gerry Hoover) (no editor is specifically credited for the text)
• “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” in Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Tales, with The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym ed. Diane Johnson — 2009 — New York: Library of America

Scholarly and Noteworthy Reprints:

• “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1894-1895 — The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 5: Tales, eds. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Chicago: Stone and Kimball (5:3-253, and 5:355-359)
• “Narrative of A. Gordon Pym” — 1902 — The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, vol. 3: Tales II, ed. J. A. Harrison, New York: T. Y. Crowell (3:5-245, and 3:329-333) (although Harrison claims to reprint the text of 1838, he actually gives the text printed by Griswold, as is evident by the presence of several verbal variants.)
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym — 1975 — edited by Harold Beaver (New York: Penguin Books) (The text relies on the 1850 Griswold edition, acknowledged in a note, p. 32. The annotations, which are not particularly extensive, are by Beaver. Reprinted in 1976, 1979, 1980, and 1982. In a private communication, Joseph. V. Ridgely stated that the edition was “fraught with typographical errors.”)
• “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1981 — The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, vol 1.: The Imaginary Voyages, ed. B. R. Pollin, Boston: Twayne Publishers (1:4-363).
• “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” — 1984 — Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales, Patrick F. Quinn (New York: Library of America), pp. 1003-1182
• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym — 1999 — edited by Richard Kopley (New York: Penguin Books) (The text relies on the 1981 text from the Pollin edition, acknowledged in a note, p. xxxvii. The annotations are new, and by Kopley. This edition essentially replaces the earlier one edited by Harold Beaver.)

Instream Comparative and Study Texts:

• The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
  • Chapter 01 (SLM and PYM)
  • Chapter 02 (SLM and PYM)

Miscellaneous Texts and Related Items:

• “Aventures d‘Arthur Gordon Pym” — (French translation by C. Baudelaire)
  • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Le Moniteur Universel (Paris)  (26 installments)
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part I — February 25, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part II — February 26, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part III — February 27, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part IV — February 28, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part V — March 4, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part VI — March 6, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part VII — March 7, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part VIII — March 11, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part IX — March 12, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part X — March 13, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XI — March 15, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XII — March 17, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XIII — March 21, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XIV — March 22, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XV — March 29, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XVI — March 31, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XVII — April 2, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XVIII — April 4, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XIX — April 5, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XX — April 7, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXI — April 8, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXII — April 14, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXIII — April 15, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXIV — April 16, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXV — April 17, 1857
    • “La Relation d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, de Nantucket” — Part XXVI — April 18, 1857
  • Aventures d‘Arthur Gordon Pym, par Edgar Poe — 1858 — Paris: Michel Lévy frères  (reprinted by the same publisher in 1862)
  • Aventures d‘Arthur Gordon Pym — 1944 — Paris: Delamain et Boutelleau  (illustrated by Mario Prassionos, limited edition of 2,300 copies)  (The cover gives the title as Les Aventures de Gordon Pym, par Edgar Allan Poe and in smaller print Les Voyages Imaginaires)
• [Nantucketer Arthur Gordon Pym; Adventures] — 1857 — an abridged Armenian translation by father E. Chakejian, Vienna, Mechitarist Friar's Publishing House) (Since the entire book, including the title, is in Armenian with a cyrillic alphabet, the title given here is a rough translation.)
• Aventuras de Arturo Gordon Pym — 1861 — Valencia: de José Rius (Biblioteca de el Diario Mercantil) (Spanish translation, translator not listed, presumably based on Baudelaire's French translation) (item listed for sale by a bookdealer in France, in 2019)
• [Narrative of A. G. Pym]  — 1863 — Barcelona: Diario de Barcelona (mentioned in Heartman & Canny, p. 40 and Pollin)
• [Narrative of A. G. Pym] — 1863 — Barcelona: E. Domenech (translation by A. de Rosas) (mentioned by Pollin)
• The Anglo-Americans in the South Pole — 1868 — Madrid: Biblioteca Universal Economica, vol. 9 (translation by “F. N.”)  (mentioned by Pollin)
• [Narrative of A. G. Pym] — 1890 — Stockholm: F. C. Askerbergs Forlag (mentioned in Heartman & Canny, p. 40 and Pollin)
• A Strange Discovery: How We Found Dirk Peters — 1899 — by Charles Romyn Dake,  New York: H. Ingalls Kimball  (This purports to be a sequel to Poe's novel. The cover spells the author's name as Charles Romeyn Dake, apparently in error as it is not spelled thus anywhere else in the book.)  (This novel has been reprinted.)
• An Antartic Mystery — 1899 — by Jules Verne (translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey)  (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.) (Essentially a retelling of Poe's tale, which refers to Poe's novel and expands on the story.)  (This novel has been reprinted.)
• “From the Tideless Sea” — April 1906 — Monthly Story Magazine by William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) (In this story, a large ship, “The Homebird” becomes trapped in weeds in the Sargasso Sea. One of the survivors, Arthur Samuel Philips, unable to escape and accepting their fate, writes a long and detailed account of their predicament and related adventures. They have sufficient provisions for about 18 years, if carefully handled. This first-person account is sent out in a series of barrels, which are eventually discovered and published, with some introductory material. Although an original story by Hodgson, it combines elements from Poe, Wells, Verne, and Doyle. For Poe, the most obvious influence is from “MS. found in a Bottle” and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, with the similarity of the name of the protagonist being quite striking. A sequel, “More News from the Homebird,” was printed in the Blue Book Magazine for August 1907, and forms a part of his “Sargasso Sea Mythos.”)
• Aventuras de Arthur Gordon Pym — 1916 — Lisboa (Lisbon): Parceria Antonio Maria Pereira. (Portuguese translation by Camara Lima)
• “Mountains of Madness” by H. P. Lovecraft — February-April 1936 (published in 1936, but written in about January 1931) — (Lovecraft' narrator mentions Poe's novel in chapter I, and it is also clearly a larger source for Lovecraft' story as a whole)
• “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” — September 19, 1943 — a radio show broadcast on NBC's The Weird Circle show. (This episode is available on CD as part of a 6-CD set of “Smithsonian Legendary Performers,” issued in 2004. As was often the case with dramatic presentations of Poe's works, the story has been modified, in this case impossibly reducing Poe's novel to a 1/2 hour show.)
• [Narrative of A. G. Pym] — 1951 — Tel Aviv, Israel: Machbarot Lesifrout publishing  (Hebrew translation by Aharon Amir, reprinted in paperback by the same publisher in 1965)
• Pym: A Novel — 2012 — by Mat Johnson, New York: One World (a division of Random House) (a kind of parody of Poe's novel)

• Achilles, Jochen, “Composite (Dis)Order: Cultural Identity in Wieland, Edgar Huntly, and Arthur Gordon Pym,” in 1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, ed. Kevin L. Cope and Laura Morrow, New York: AMS, 1997, pp. 252-270.
• Akiyama, Yoshinori, “The Adventure of Self: Quest of the Heroes in Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Herman Melville's Typee,” Otsuka Review, 1995, 31:30-39
• Bailey, J. O., “Sources of Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and ‘Hans Pfaal’ and Other Pieces,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, 1942, 57:513-535
• Barth, John, “ 'still Farther South’: Some Notes on Poe's Pym,” inPoe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 217-230 (Originally appeared in Antaeus, Autumn 1989, 63:7-18. Reprinted in Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction 1984-1994, New York: Little Brown, 1995, and Perspectives on Poe, ed. D. Ramakrishna, New Delhi: APC Publications 1996, pp. 1-18)
• Beegel, Susan F., “ ‘Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery’: The Globe Mutiny as a Source for Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 7-19.
• Dameron, J. Lasley, “Poe's Pym and Scoresby on Polar Cataracts,” Resources for American Literary Study, 1995, 21:258-260
• Dameron, J. Lasley, “Pym's Polar Episode: Conclusion or Beginning?,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 33-43.
• Farrell, Grace, “Mourning in Poe's Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 107-116.
• Farrell, Grace, “Dream Texts: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and the Journal of Julius Rodman,” in Companion to Poe Studies, ed. Eric W. Carlson, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, pp. 209-235
• Fioraso, Roberto, “Poe e Salgari tra botole e gorghi marini,” Bollettino della Biblioteca civica di Verona, Autumn 1997, 3:159-165
• Fussell, Edwin, Frontier: American Literature and the American West, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965
• Hammond, Alexander, “Consumption, Exchange, and the Literary Marketplace: From the Folio Club Tales to Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 153-166.
• Heartman, Charles F. and James R. Canny, A Bibliography of First Printings of the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Hattiesburg, MS: The Book Farm, 1943.
• Hirsch, David H., “ ‘Postmodern’ or Post-Auschwitz: The Case of Poe,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 141-150.
• Irwin, John T., “The Quincuncial Network in Poe's Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 175-187.
• Kennedy, J. Gerald, “Pym Pourri: Decomposing the Textual Body,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 167-174.
• Ketterer, David, “Tracing Shadows: Pym Criticism, 1980-1990,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 233-274.
• Ljungquist, Kent P., “ ‘Speculative Mythology’ and the Titan Myth in Poe's Pym and Melville's Pierre,” The Sphinx: A Magazine of Literature and Society (University of Regina, Canada), vol. 4, no. 4, 1985, 250-257
• Mead, Joan Tyler, “Poe's ‘Manual of Seamanship’,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 20-32.
• Moldenhauer, Joseph J., “Pym, the Dighton Rock, and the Matter of Vinland,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 75-94.
• Peirce, Carol, and Alexander G. Rose III, “Poe's Reading of Myth: The White Vision of Arthur Gordon Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 57-74.
• Pollin, Burton R., ed., “Introduction,” etc. The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe; Vol I — The Imaginary Voyages (Including The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Unparalled Adventure of one Hans Pfaall and The Journal of Julius Rodman), Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.
• Pollin, Burton R., “A Comprehensive Bibliography of Editions and Translations of Arthur Gordon Pym,” American Transcendental Quarterly, Winter 1978, issue no. 37, pp. 93-110. (This bibliography includes many relatively modern editions, well beyond the historical boundaries for this website listing.)
• Pollin, Burton R., “Poe's Life Reflected through the Sources of Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 95-103.
• Porte, Joel, The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville and James, Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1969, pp. 53-94.
• Rhea, R. L., “Some Observations on Poe's Origins,” University of Texas Studies in English, 1930, 10:135-146
• Ridgely, Joseph V. “The Continuing Puzzle of Arthur Gordon Pym” Poe Newletter (later Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, June 1970, 3:5-6
• Rowe, John Carlos, “Poe, Antebellum Slavery, and Modern Criticism,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 117-138.
• Thompson, G. Richard, “The Arabesque Design of Arthur Gordon Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 188-213.
• Walden, Daniel, “The Coastal Frontier and the Oceanic Wilderness in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, 2011
• Watts, Theodore, “Edgar Poe,” Athenaeum, September 2, 1876, no. 2549, p. 306
• Weiner, Bruce I., “Novels, Tales, and Problems of Form in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym,” in Poe's Pym: Critical Explorations, ed., Richard Kopley, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992, pp. 44-56.
• Weissuch, Ted N., “Edgar Allan Poe: Hoaxer in the American Tradition,” New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, July 1961, 45:291-309
• Wyllie, John Cooke, “A List of the Texts of Poe's Tales,” Humanistic Studies in Honor of John Calvin Metcalf, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1941, pp. 322-338.