ABSTRACT
When we say that Mr Pym of Nantucket, proceeded as far as the eighty-fourth degree of Southern latitude, and abruptly breaks off his narrative whilst in full tilt for the South Pole, with a steady wind and a rapid current in his favour, carrying him through a hot and milky-looking ocean, with surrounding wonders of various kinds, the reader will see at once that the work is an American fiction. But, although without any definite purpose, it is a fiction of no mean skill; displaying much power, much nautical knowledge, and a Defoe — like appearance of reality. Its ease, simplicity, and natural effects, remind one of Marryat.
