CHAPTER V.
EDGAR POE'S ROMANCE In this chapter I have to give a brief summary of Edgar Poe's romance, which was published at Richmond under the title of THE ADVENTURES OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM.
We shall see whether there was any room for doubt that the adventures of this hero of romance were imaginary.

But indeed, among the multitude of Poe's readers, was there ever one, with the sole exception of Len Guy, who believed them to be real?
The story is told by the principal personage.

Arthur Pym states in the preface that on his return from his voyage to the Antarctic seas he met, among the Virginian gentlemen who took an interest in geographical discoveries, Edgar Poe, who was then editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_ at Richmond, and that he authorized the latter to publish the first part of his adventures in that journal "under the cloak of fiction." That portion having been favourably received, a volume containing the complete narrative was issued with the signature of Edgar Poe.
Arthur Gordon Pym was born at Nantucket, where he attended the Bedford School until he was sixteen years old.

Having left that school for Mr.Ronald's, he formed a friendship with one Augustus Barnard, the son of a ship's captain.

This youth, who was eighteen, had already accompanied his father on a whaling expedition in the southern seas, and his yarns concerning that maritime adventure fired the imagination of Arthur Pym.