This article on “M.S Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe includes commentary, revisions, and suggestions for Poe made by the editor. Building on our class discussions, the commentary for the edition presents an analysis of Poe’s use of Gothic elements and how effective the choices were, specifically focusing on places of missed opportunity. These are specifically marked throughout the article. Furthermore, the bulk of this edition will use Jerrold Hogle’s “The Gothic in Western Culture” to dissect Poe’s story and ending and compare it to my own ending which will follow the Gothic elements a little too well. In this article, the editor is viewed as equal to Hogle and uses his article just as an old neighbors would trade and borrow sugar. This will provide a satirical piece about genre writing as well as be informational about Gothic literature.
The images present in the article are illustrations done by artists Byam Shaw and Harry Clarke. Both were collected from the Library of America due to their focus and elaborate characterization of the ocean from the story “M.S Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe.
For another dissection and critique of Poe:
For a dissection and admiration of Poe:
The source text is:
Edgar Allan Poe, “MS. Found in a Bottle ” (Text-06c), Broadway Journal (New York, NY), vol. II, no. 14, October 11, 1845, pp. 203-206.
The secondary texts:
Hogle, Jerrold E. “Introduction: the Gothic in Western Culture.” The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, edited by Jerrold E. Hogle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 1–20. Cambridge Companions to Literature.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Penguin Classics, 2012.
Editor: Katherine Bonny