One-eyed Willy was here…
I love Poe…I love the Sea…and like Arthur Conan Doyle…Poe seem to have a love affair as well. His only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was a sea story, as is his short story Manuscript Found in a Bottle. This is an adventure story, full of nautical dangers like sandstorms appearing at sea and pummeling everyone overboard (kind of hokey, but interesting…albeit not very realistic). Only a couple of gentlemen are left on the ship, including the narrator of course, and they begin to drift south…running into an abandoned galleon…from the Age of Sail and Buccaneers…like the Flying Dutchman…or a one-eyed pirate hiding their ship and booty in a massive cave…where a group of youngsters come along and discover riches beyond…wait…wrong story…
Anyway, it is a fun story, not profound, but enjoyable…and if
you’re into this kind of thing…of which I am, you will not be disappointed.
MS Found in a Bottle
was originally published in newsprint, the Baltimore
Saturday Visitor, October 19, 1833 to be exact, going on to be published in
book form for the first time in The Gift:
A Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1836.
Here’s the first edition, 1836 book, in which Manuscript Found in
a Bottle was first seen...
