“Man was made to mourn,” says the poet. But not so:—he was made to diddle. This is his aim—his object—his end. And for this reason when a man’s diddled we say he’s “done.”

‘Diddling’, or to give it it’s original title ‘Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences’ is by way of a humorous essay pretending to be an academic work, rather than a story. It is certainly a fun little read, as long as one accepts this central conceit.

The text exhorts the virtues of the diddler, by going through a series of short cons, or diddles. These are all the kinds of cons you see in movies and TV shows when they are introducing a likable rogue or conman. You know the kind of thing, a man pretending to be a store keeper, to pocket your deposit on goods that aren’t his to sell. Another selling a fake ring to a credulous pair.

When I was a child, in the early 80’s the A Team would come on, and everyone love BA Baracus, played by the indomitable Mr T , but I preferred ‘Face’ the quick witted conman of the team. One of my favorite movies growing up was ‘The Sting’, fast talking con artists are fun folk heroes as long as they are stealing from the credulous greedy folk who are as bent as the conmen involved.

That is always the line by which we are sold a story about conmen, the victims of the con have to be greedy criminal types themselves. In the sting its a mob boss they are trying to con, in the A-Team it was always the ‘bad guy’ or those who worked for them. Grifters grift those who deserve to be grifted…

Of course in reality the people who get conned are the weakest and most venerable and conmen are not people to be put on pedestals, but criminals making off with pensioners life savings…

Poe’s essay on the art of the diddle is a fun read, but little more than that. It also make no effort to make the victims deserve to be conned. Its clever, quick and moves form one short con to another in rapid first succession but its not a story and if anyone but Poe had written it it would be a long forgotten piece in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier that filled half a page with nonsense for a quick pay day for the writer…

You could almost say it was a con… and the editor got diddled…

TWO RAVENS, ONE HOLDING YOUR ATTENTION WHILE THE OTHER PICKS YOUR POCKET…

Should you read it: I had to, you can chose to pass

Bluffers fact: Lord Gorden Gorden, who had nothing to do with Poe, and was really active 20 years after Poe wrote this story, was a diddler of the old school. He claimed to be descended from the ancient kings of the Scottish highlands. His real name was John Crowningsfield the bastard son of a Lancashire clergyman and not even Scottish.

He was a conman who was so successful when he finally fled America with ill-gotten gains form swindling a railroad tycoon it almost lead to a war as thousands of Minnesotans volunteered for military service to invade Canada after three future members of congress were arrested in Canada when they tried to abduct him.