Edgar Allan Poe 
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s analysis: The literary impact of ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’

Originally published in 1838, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe.



Arthur Gordon Pym lives on Nantucket, a whaling and fishing island, and his best friend, Augustus, is the son of a whaling ship captain. The two boys drunkenly sail out on Pym’s little boat,
Ariel, on Augustus’s impulse. They get caught in a storm, and Augustus passes out drunk. A whaling ship, the
Penguin, passes by and rescues the boys, who agree later not to tell their parents.

After that experience, Pym’s imagination runs wild, and he follows Augustus as a stowaway aboard the
Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism, before he is saved by the crew of the Jane Guy. Aboard this vessel, Pym and a sailor named Dirk Peters continue their adventures farther south…



Critics had mixed reviews on the book, some saying it was too gruesome and relied too heavily on other books and tropes, while others enjoyed the excitement. However, it became an influential work for many significant authors, including Melville and Verne.