at
follows I claim to be my own writing; and it will also be understood
that no fact is misrepresented in the first few pages which were written
by Mr. Poe. Even to those readers who have not seen the "Messenger,"
it will be unnecessary to point out where his portion ends and my own
commences; the difference in point of style will be readily perceived.

A. G. PYM.

CHAPTER 1

MY name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My father was a respectable trader in
sea-stores at Nantucket, where I was born. My maternal grandfather was
an attorney in good practice. He was fortunate in every thing, and had
speculated very successfully in stocks of the Edgarton New Bank, as it
was formerly called. By these and other means he had managed to lay by a
tolerable sum of money. He was more attached to myself, I believe, than
to any other person in the world, and I expected to inherit the most
of his property at his death. He sent me, at six years of age, to
the school of old Mr. Ricketts, a gentleman with only one arm and of
eccentric manners--he is well known to almost every person who has
visited New Bedford. I stayed at his school until I was sixteen, when I
left him for Mr. E. Ronald's academy on the hill. Here I became intimate
with the son of Mr. Barnard, a sea-captain, who generally sailed in the
employ of Lloyd and Vredenburgh--Mr. Barnard is also very well known in
New Bedford, and has many relations, I am certain, in Edgarton. His son
was named Augustus, and he was nearly two years older than myself. He
had been on a whaling voyage with his father in the John Donaldson, and
was always talking to me of his adventures in the South Pacific Ocean.
I used frequently to go home with him, and remain all day, and sometimes
all night. We occupied the same bed, and he would be sure to keep me
awake until almost light, telling me stories of the natives of the
Island of Tinian, and other places he had visited in his travels. At
last I could not help being interested in what he said, and by degrees
I felt the greatest desire to go to sea. I owned a sailboat called the
Ariel, and worth about seventy-five dollars. She had a half-deck or
cuddy, and was rigged sloop-fashion--I forget her tonnage, but she would
hold ten persons without much crowding. In this boat we were in the
habit of going on some of the maddest freaks in the world; and, when I
now think of them, it appears to me a thousand wonders that I am alive
to-day.

I w