The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...by the narrator. In this view I wrote a story which I called "Hans Phaall," publishing it about six months afterwards in "The Southern Literary Messenger," of which I was then editor. It was three weeks after the issue of " The Messenger" containing " Hans Phaall," that the first of the "Moon-hoax " editorials made its appearance in "The Sun," and no sooner had I seen the paper than I understood the jest, which not for a moment could I doubt had been suggested by my own jeu tPesprit. Some of the New York journals (' The Transcript" among others) saw the matter in the same light, and published the "Moon story" side by side with "Hans Phaall," thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the author of the other. Although the details arc, with some exception, very dissimilar, still I maintain that the general features of the two compositions are nearly identical. Both are hoaxes, (although one is in a tone of mere banter, the other of downright earnest;) both hoaxes are on one subject, astronomy; both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both professed to have derived exclusive information from a foreign country, and both attempt to give plausibility by minuteness of scientific detail. Add to all this that nothing of a similar nature had ever been attempted before these two hoaxes, the one of which followed immediately upon the heels of the other. Having stated the case, however, in this form, I am bound to do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having seen my article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add, also, that I believe him. Immediately on the completion of the "Moon story," (it was three or four days in getting fin...