avourably received, a
volume containing the complete narrative was issued with the
signature of Edgar Poe.

Arthur Gordon Pym was born at Nantucket, where he attended the
Bedford School until he was sixteen years old. Having left that
school for Mr. Ronald's, he formed a friendship with one Augustus
Barnard, the son of a ship's captain. This youth, who was
eighteen, had already accompanied his father on a whaling expedition
in the southern seas, and his yarns concerning that maritime
adventure fired the imagination of Arthur Pym. Thus it was that the
association of these youths gave rise to Pym's irresistible
vocation to adventurous voyaging, and to the instinct that
especially attracted him towards the high zones of the Antarctic
region. The first exploit of Augustus Barnard and Arthur Pym was an
excursion on board a little sloop, the _Ariel_, a two-decked boat
which belonged to the Pyms. One evening the two youths, both being
very tipsy, embarked secretly, in cold October weather, and boldly
set sail in a strong breeze from the south-west. The _Ariel_, aided by
the ebb tide, had already lost sight of land when a violent storm
arose. The imprudent young fellows were still intoxicated. No one
was at the helm, not a reef was in the sail. The masts were carried
away by the furious gusts, and the wreck was driven before the wind.
Then came a great ship which passed over the _Ariel_ as the _Ariel_
would have passed a floating feather.

Arthur Pym gives the fullest details of the rescue of his companion
and himself after this collision, under conditions of extreme
difficulty. At length, thanks to the second officer of the _Penguin_,
from New London, which arrived on the scene of the catastrophe, the
comrades were picked with life all but extinct, and taken back to
Nantucket.

This adventure, to which I cannot deny an appearance veracity, was
an ingenious preparation for the chapters that were to follow, and
indeed, up to the day on which Pym penetrates into the polar circle,
the narrative might conceivably be regarded as authentic. But,
beyond the polar circle, above the austral icebergs, it is quite
another thing, and, if the author's work be not one of pure
imagination, I am--well, of any other nationality than my own. Let
us get on.

Their first adventure had not cooled the two youths, and eight
months after the affair of the _Ariel_--June, 1827--the brig
__Grampus__ was fitted out by the house of Lloyd and Vredenb