ABSTRACT
This is a volume of a dozen tales of a sort of genteel Terrific Register description. 1 They consist of startling adventures by field and flood, told in an agreeable, graphic manner; but they bear evidences that the writer is an American, scribing for American readers; indeed, this work was originally printed in the New World, and is now re-issued as one of a series which the publishers, we presume, intend to continue. We can better recommend the volume in three months' time than now, for the stories are more fitted for a Christmas-party, round a good blazing fire, than for long autumnal evenings, when the lengthened shadows might seem the phantom of horrors which the perusal of Mr PoE's Tales would assuredly conjure up. They must be read when prickly red-holly scares away blue devils. The story called ‘A Descent into the Maelström’, smacks peculiarly of the marvellous; but if it be an invention, it is well imagined and vividly told. It seems that at a certain period this terrific whirlpool enjoys a cessation from its otherwise eternal labours, and at the ‘time of slack’ boats can pass near it in safety. Two brothers one day, however, mistook the hour, and were drawn gradually on into the frightful abyss of waters. That either should have escaped is certainly very difficult to believe, but here is a portion of the recital —.
