The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition: Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five VolumesPoe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition: Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Indexes; Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849; Short stories
The writer professes to have translated his work from the English
of one Mr. D’Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible
ambiguity in the statement. “J’ en ai eu,” says he “l’original de
Monsieur D’Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient
aujourd’huy dans la cõnoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout
de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les
autres, de m’ auoir non seulement mis en main ce Livre en
anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D’Anan,
gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la
version duquel j’ advoue que j’ ay tiré le plan de la mienne.”
After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas,
and which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that,
being ill during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together
with a negro servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase
the chances of obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far
apart as possible. This brings about a training of birds, to
serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by
these are taught to carry parcels of some weight—and this weight
is gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained of
uniting the force of a great number of the birds, with a view to
raising the author himself. A machine is contrived for the
purpose, and we have a minute description of it, which is
materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the
Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated
astride something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and
borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans _(ganzas)_ who had
strings reaching from their tails to the machine.
The main event detailed in the Signor’s narrative depends upon a
very important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance
until near the end of the book. The _ganzas,_ with whom he had
become so familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but
of the moon. Thence it had been their custom, time out of mind,
to migrate annually to some portion of the earth. In proper
season, of course, they would return home; and the author,
happening, one day, to require their services for a short voyage,
is unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period
arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things,
that the people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no _law;_
that they die without pain; that they are from ten to thirty feet
in height; that they live five thousand years; that they have an
emperor called Irdonozur; and that they can jump sixty feet high,
when, being out of the gravitating influence, they fly about with
fans.
I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general _philosophy_ of
the volume.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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