Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), September 27, 1845, vol. 2, no. 12, p. ???, col. ?

[page 177, column 2, continued:]

Wiley & Putnam's Library of American Books, No. V. — Big Abel and the Little Manhattan. By Cornelius Mathews.

The conception and execution of this book are both original. The narrative (if such it may be termed) forms merely the upper current of the true theme which flows below. The principal object is that of a suggestive parallel between the present and primitive condition of the Island of Manhattan. A secondary purpose is that of gossip about the New-York localities and customs — especially those appertaining to the terrae incognitae of remote districts, such as the East Bowery. The ostensible theme has reference to the adventures of a great grandson of Hudson, the navigator, and the heir of the last chief of the Manhattanese. These worthies are supposed [page 178:] to institute, or to contemplate instituting, in the “Supreme Court of Judicature,” a claim against the Corporation of New-York, for the whole of its territory. Imbued with a strong prospective sense of their title, the claimants are represented as vagabondizing through the island, partitioning between them the property that is to be theirs upon the decision of the suit. It is their division of the spoils which affords opportunity for the suggestive parallel between the savage and the civilized condition. Big Abel's attention is arrested, and his cupidity excited, by everything appertaining to commerce and modern usage. He claims, for example, the shipping, the markets, the banks, and the coffee-houses. The Little Manhattan has an eye to the fountains, the squares, and the Indian figures at the tobacco-shop doors. The conversation of the two claimants is little in itself — but is full of a delicate and skillful innuendo, which, indeed, is the staple of the book. An episode relating to a Poor Scholar and his mistress, serves well as an introduction for many touches of a homely or domestic pathos, in illustration of local details.

The book, upon the whole, does great credit to its author. The conception is forcible and unique. Much skill is evinced in the general construction and conduct. The allegory is properly subdued. Many points evince acute observation, and a keen sense of the more delicate humor. There are also some passages of rich imagination. The style is nervous, but (intentionally) loose or abrupt, and has an original and, therefore, impressive effect. The great defect of the work is indefiniteness. The design is not sufficiently well made out. More hereafter.