The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

by Edgar Allan Poe

$18,000 · Offered by Biblio

First edition

Octavo. Original pebble grain blue muslin, printed paper label affixed to spine panel. First edition. First edition of the only completed novel by Edgar Allan Poe, published in August 1838, without author's name. Poe had published, under his name, extracts from The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym (corresponding to chapters I to IV of the novel) in the American magazine Southern Literary Messenger in January and February 1837, but during the volume edition, produced a year later, the text was presented, in agreement with Edgar Allan Poe, as the story of an authentic voyage of exploration to the confines of the Antarctic Ocean, therefore without the author's name. The Preface, dated June 1838, speaks of it as the testimony of an adventurer entrusted to a gentleman from Richmond, Edgar A. Poe. The work, which appeared almost simultaneously in England, was panned by Anglo-American critics, and later almost disowned by its author. Baudelaire himself, who delivered the first French translation in 1858, initially expressed reservations about this exuberant adventure novel, where implausibilities and construction defects could put off certain readers. But today The Adventures of Arthur G. Pym, the subject of numerous and scholarly studies, is recognized as a true masterpiece. Very precious copy, in its original condition.

• Publisher: Harper & Brothers
• Year: 1838
• Edition: First Edition
• Binding: hardcover

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