Edgar Allan Poe / Pierre Falké - Les Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym de Nantucket - 1921

Quarto (25 x 20 cm), paperback. 286 pp. In good condition, usual wear on the back, loose notebook. Flawless interior (see photos).

Limited edition of 600 copies, one of the 500 laid pure Lafuma yarn (No. 157).

Translated from English by Charles Baudelaire. Preface by Jules Romains.

Illustrated with 34 original engraved woods by Pierre Falké, including 1 on the frontispiece, 28 in the head, 4 illustrations in the text and a vignette justifying the print.


Les Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym de Nantucket is the only novel completed by Edgar Allan Poe.

Presented by its publishers as the story of an authentic journey of discovery to the unexplored confines of the Antarctic Ocean, the book was exhausted by Anglo-American critics when it was published and almost later denied by its author. Baudelaire himself initially expressed reservations about this exuberant adventure novel, not devoid of implausibilities and construction defects, which later deeply impressed readers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Jules Verne, Howard Phillips Lovecraft or Gaston Bachelard.

Arthur G. Pym's enigmatic odyssey, the mystery surrounding his disappearance off the South Pole, and the nature of the "veiled silhouette" that closes the story have also given rise to the most diverse and contradictory interpretations.