ABSTRACT
If however our readers will have an out and out romance, and the marvels of an unprecedented voyager, we are prepared to satisfy them; for here is one by a Yankee — the species being the most unscrupulous of any in the matter of marvellous stories. Before, however, saying anything of the nautical adventures of Mr Pym, comprising as they do the ‘Details of a Mutiny, Famine, and Shipwreck, during a Voyage to the South Seas, resulting in extraordinary Adventures and Discoveries in the Eighty-fourth parallel of Southern Latitude,’ — (eighty-fourth! mark that,) we have to state that other recent Transatlantic works of an imaginary character and of the novel class might have been selected by us — such as Cromwell,by the author of The Brothers, Burton,&c., 1 each of them, though falling far short of the objects and the portraitures aimed at, having a specific character which takes them out of any particular school formed in this country. We choose the adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, however, because the work appears to us to be characterized by a greater degree of originality, boldness, and skill, than either of the former; while its extravagances, and mere attempt, as it would seem, at fancying next to miraculous things, rather than the inculcation of any valuable principles or refinement, put it out of the list of those fictions which are to be recommended as models or for general perusal. The simple fact that some of the most elaborate scenes, and where no mean power is exhibited, are disgustingly horrible, would of itself be a sufficient warning against imitation.
