Edgar Allen Poe remains one to the most influential writers of the western cannon. His Horror stories inspired many writers, not least those of HP Lovecraft’s generation a hundred years later and by extension Steven King generation were inspired by both Poe and the previous generations he had inspired. Without Poe there may never have been a Cthulhu or a Pennywise the clown.

It’s not just Poe’s tales of Horror that inspired those who came after him. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attributes the innovation of the detective story to Poe’s, Auguste Dupin stories beginning with Murder on the Rue Morgue. Inspired by the Dupin tales Doyle came up with his own detective, Sherlock Holmes, to no small success, and Doyle in turn inspired Agatha Christie and a whole host of modern writers who have made the genre their own. Poe’s ability to inspire in these cases is well known and well documented as is the influence of his humorous tales to the likes of PG Wodehouse and others though to a lesser extent than his horror and detective fiction.

There is, however, one genre of stories for which Poe influence gains less acclaim, that of science fiction. Few of his stories really lent themselves to the genre. And yet, his influence when they do remains just as profound, as is the case with the cumbersomely titled ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’ first published in 1835. A story that led to none other than Captain Nemo’s creator, Jules Verne, to proclaim Poe to be

‘le créateur du roman merveilleux scientifique’

and when the father of science fiction called someone the creator of the scientific novel, I think we science fiction writers have to tip our hats to our own Dear Edgar too.

Verne said this in the original introduction to his 1865 novel ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ a novel which also directly references ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’ in it’s text, and was clearly inspired in part by this particular story. So as with the other genre’s Poe inspired some of the greatest writers of the western cannon. Writers that went on inspire future generations of writers up to and including today, myself included.

Verne’s ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ centres around the building of an enormous cannon to literally shoot for the moon, carrying three people in a shell. Verne referred to the shell as a ‘space ship’, believed to be the first ever use of that term. This is of course a ridiculous idea, the G forces alone experienced in such a shot would massively exceed those astronauts experience in modern rockets which are already on the cusp of what a human being can experience without expiring. But it is a splendidly ridiculous idea all the same and why let facts get in the way of a good story… Which is why I nicked it and had a ‘mad scientist’ called Elonis Musk building a similar gun on a volcano on a tiny pacific island in my third Hannibal Smyth novel, which was great fun to write.

When I wrote that novel I had no idea that Verne’s original novel had been influenced by this particular Poe story, as I’d no idea this particular story even existed. But the point here is that no ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’ then no ‘From the Earth to the Moon’, and by extension no ‘A Squid on the Shoulder’.. So once I’d done my research and discovered the admittedly tenuous connection to my own work, I was rather looking forward to reading the story itself… However there is a big problem with the story.

The problem is of course that ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’ is a precursor to science fiction. It has the same issue as with the main problem with Verne when you read his stories now, the technology that was innovation when written is so very dated now. Verne made calculations for his gun that from a technical point of view were not far off the mark, but we know now it would never have worked. But Verne, perhaps due to the habits of his translators tends not to be ‘tech’ heavy in his stories, they tend towards the adventurous and remain readable (unless you read the unabridged versions like the unabridged 20000 Leagues Under the Sea I read a few years ago, which has many many lists of fish among it’s pages.)

Verne’s novels are defining novels of the genre so their idiosyncrasies are oft forgiven. ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall’ however is not a defining novel, its a little known short story by an author known for his gothic horror, about a man traveling to the moon in a balloon of his own design. Something harder to suspend your disbelief about than giant moon-shot cannons. Hot air balloons were the pinnacle of aeronautics in the 1830’s. Poe’s character, a bellow maker by trade, makes on and fills it using a special gas acquired from a French chemist, this gives him the altitude to escape gravities grasp. Then by compressing the void of space through another device to make breathable air he travels to the moon.

He does all this because the bottom has fallen out of the bellows market because people can fan the flames of the house hold fire place with newspapers. Again, this is not actually comedy, broadsheets with multiple pages had recently become a thing as paper and ink became cheaper and print presses more advanced, bellows really were old tech when a cheaper option to repairing them could be bought for a halfpenny… Also a bellows maker is skilled with metal and leather as well processing as a basic level of mechanics so strange though it may seem there is some logic here.

The moon too is not the moon that Neil Armstrong walked upon. It is a fiery volcanic satellite inhabited by small humanish people… One of which takes Pfaall’s craft back to earth to drop off a letter explaining where Pfaall vanished to five years before, and the fate of the three others who vanished the same night, creditors he murdered in order to escape as they came upon him just as he was preparing to launch his craft. Indeed the only reason we know any of this is his letter is a begging post asking that the Berger’s of his home town grant him a pardon for the murders as it was an act committed under duress… The town council grant his pardon after reading the full details of his adventures, however the moon man Pfaall sent as his envoy had not stuck around so they have no way to let him his plea for clemency had been granted…

Lets just say the whole tale is ‘a lot’.

All of which could be smiled away had it been written as humour, but while there is some humour in this story, much of it is po-faced. This was written as a serious story and meant to be believable on some level, which in the 1830’s was not inconceivable. Poe originally wrote the story to be published in a newspaper as a hoax letter claiming all this to be real. While he added more elements of the fantastical in later drafts that original core of believable for the times science remained. The trouble is, what was a believable if farfetched science base tale in 1835, is in this later age merely ridiculous. The required suspension of disbelief is just too much for the faux-factual story it pertains to be. If Poe had filled this with humour and written for rye smiles it would possibly still work but as it is it just doesn’t any more.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a well written tale. Written with all Poe’s eloquence and mastery of the language, but its a toil to read and lacks any real spark. It could read as a plain fantasy, but it wasn’t never written to be one. Its a tale that has lost its audience to time and lacks the charm to get past its failings.

A SINGLE RAVEN DYING ON ITS BACK…

Show you read it: As a story it is only really of interest to scholars of science fiction as one of the progenitors of the genre. Even then it is more progenitor of a progenitor, and hard going.

Redeeming feature: While I would not recommend it as a story to read it deserves its plaudits for what it inspired, if nothing else.

Bluffers fact: Po-faced is British slang meaning someone has a humourless, disdainful or sour-faced demeanour. Surprisingly then this has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poe. The origin of the term is instead believed to be derived from the word ‘po’, an abbreviated slang based on the French for chamber pot, ‘pot de chambre’ due to the distasteful expression anyone would adopt upon being presented with a full one.

And yes, I looked that up when I stated this story was po-faced and realised I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t a reference to our own Dear Edgar’s oft depicted demeanour.