This article is an excerpt from Murray Ellison’s VCU MA Thesis on Poe and Nineteenth-Century Science, ©2015. It was first published 8/20/2018 on the Richmond, VA Poe Museum Website: www.poemuseum.org
Near the end of Poe; journalistic career, he was likely running out of legitimate science reports that would excite the public’s interest in science as spectacularly as his fictional stories did. Perhaps by that time, his imagination far exceeded science’s ability to create new inventions. His 1843 “Balloon Hoax” story in the New York Sun demonstrated that sensational quasi-scientific newspaper reports could command the public’s attention in ways that even he could have never imagined. By presenting a fictional narrative as if it was an actual front-page news story, Poe captured the attention of a larger segment of nineteenth-century readers much more than he did in any of his earlier journalistic reports. However, this move also seriously damaged his credibility as a serious science reporter. In this account, he also introduced a more skeptical attitude about nineteenth-century science than he displayed in his previous journalistic outputs. Therefore, his “Hoax” is a transitional story linking his earlier journalistic writing to his later fictional science narratives.
The extraordinary story of a Transatlantic Balloon crossing was first written by Poe under the pseudonym of John Wise, and was first published in the June 15, 1843, issue of the newspaper, Spirit of the Times, which reported that a “well-known balloonist plans to take a trip across the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1844” (Thomas and Jackson 414). A year after, The New York Sun ran a follow-up news report on the balloon trip without mentioning ‘Wise.’ The newspaper’s April 13, 1844 headline read:
“We stop the press at a late hour, to announce that, by a Private Express from Charleston, S.C., we are just put in possession of full details of the most extraordinary adventure ever accomplished by man.” The “Atlantic Ocean has been actually traversed in a balloon, and in the incredibly brief period of Three Days! Eight persons have crossed in the machine. (457). The Sun also printed an Extra Sun, adding that the crossing was a triumph of Mr. Monck’s flying machine, which also included the names of the passengers along with an illustration (below) of the Victoria:
On the same day as the Extra Sun’s report, the New York Herald countered that the hoax was “blunderously got up,” and “ridiculously put together” (Thomas and Jackson 460). It added: “About 50,000 of the Extras were sold…We think every intelligent reader will regard this attempt to hoax as not even possessing the character of pleasantry. They added that the celebrated ‘Moon Hoax,’ issued from the New York Sun, many years ago was an ingenious essay; but that is more than can be said of the “Balloon Hoax” (461). The Herald was the first newspaper to give this story the presently used title but still did not connect it with Poe. The Sun had previously published a presumed news story by Robert Locke 1835 about British astronomer, John Herschel, stating that he had gone to Cape Hope, South Africa to test his new powerful telescope. Neil Harris writes that the Sun reported that, “Herschel’s success had been beyond his wildest dreams, for the telescope had penetrated the secrets of the Moon, claiming that it had trees, oceans, pelicans, and winged men (69). Locke’s story sold more than 20,000 copies. A newspaper commentator later boasted that many people “absolutely believed the story” (69). Harris is also one of the many researchers who connected Locke’s “Moon Hoax” with Poe’s “Balloon Hoax.”
The next Poe and Science Litchatte.com Blog discusses how Poe and “The Balloon Hoax” were exposed and the effect it had on his writing and reputation.
Selected Sources
Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Thomas, Dwight and David Jackson, Ed. The Poe Log- A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. Boston: G.B. Hall and Company, 1987.
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Dr. Murray Ellison received a Master’s in Education from Temple University (1973), a Master’s Degree of Arts in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University (2015), and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech (1988). He is married and has three adult daughters and a new grand-daughter! He ‘retired’ as the Virginia Director of Community Corrections for the Department of Correctional Education in 2009. Included in his ‘after-retirement activities,’ he is the founder and chief editor of this literary blog, and he is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal. He is the Co-Editor of the 2016 book of poetry, Mystic Verses, by Acharya Shambhushivananda, and is an Editor for The First Mennonite Church of Richmond’s Newsletter. He serves as a board member and volunteer tour guide for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia. Mainly, however, for the last several years, he has taught literature classes for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond. Effective August 2018, he started teaching English Writing & Research Classes at the Richard Bland College of William & Mary University. Finally, in his ‘spare time,’ he tutors two school youth, does occasional professional editing and coördinates both The Midlothian, Virginia, Classic Book Club and the VCU Working Titles Book Club. Contact Murray at ellisonms2@vcu.edu, or leave a note at the bottom of the post.
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