The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and Related Tales (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Poe, Edgar Allan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192837710 ISBN 13: 9780192837714

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

Synopsis

And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact'.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas,
at last leaving the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution.

Apart from its violence and mystery, the tale calls attention to the act of writing and to the problem of representing truth. Layer upon layer of elaborate hoaxes include its author's own role of posing as ghost-writer of the narrative; Pym - his only novel - has become the key text for our
understanding of Poe.

This edition offers eight short tales which are linked to Pym by their treatment of persistent themes - fantastic voyages, gigantic whirlpools, and premature burials - or by their ironic commentary on Poe's mystification of his readers.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is an archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But the plot also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, and then leaves the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution.

About the Author:

Gerald J. Kennedy is Professor at Louisiana State University. He is the author of

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0192837710
• ISBN 13: 9780192837714
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Kennedy J. Gerald