The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall

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Illustration by Yan Dargent to The incomparable adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall for Jules Verne 's "Edgar Poe et ses œuvres" (1864)

The short story " The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (Original: The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall ) was first published by Edgar Allan Poe in the June issue of Southern Literary Messenger and included in the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque collection (1840 ) recorded. The story, originally as a hoax (dt. "Jux, joke, jokes or dizziness") intended was since then in various anthologies have been published.

The story focuses on Hans Pfaall's journey to the moon in a hot air balloon. It is one of the very first science fiction stories.

action

The short story consists of three parts:

In the first part, a short, four-page opening describes the "highly philosophical [...] excitement" (p. 125) in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which is triggered by the appearance of a balloon made of dirty newspaper, which is controlled by a very strange figure.

In the second part, Hans Pfaall describes in detail in a letter to the College of Astronomers in the city of Rotterdam his nineteen-day trip to the moon, which he undertakes with a cat and a pigeon. In the course of the journey the cat throws cubs; The protagonist uses all animals for research purposes .

The author of the travelogue does not believe that there is a vacuum between the earth and the moon; he thinks it doesn't matter how far you are from the earth, there is air everywhere, only its concentration continues to decrease.

Pfaall travels around his basket with the help of an “airtight, yet elastic rubber backpack” (p. 160), whose air he regularly renews with a condenser.

He describes the arrival on the lunar surface in his manuscript as follows:

“And by clinging to the network with both hands, I hardly had time to notice that the whole country around, as far as the eye could see, was dotted with tiny dwellings when I was headlong in the middle a seemingly fantastic city spun and landed in a huge crowd of ugly little people ”(p. 185f.).

Then Hans Pfaall's story breaks off. In his letter to the College of Astronomers, he only states that he would be prepared to disclose his further findings and more precise information if, in return, he would receive impunity for the crimes he committed before his departure, in particular the murder of three of his creditors, would be granted. The bearer of the letter, a lunar inhabitant according to Hans Pfaall, would return to him and inform him of his pardon. However, since the messenger who delivered Pfaall's manuscript has disappeared in the general uproar, a pardon for Pfaall does not seem to make sense.

In the separate final part ( coda ) the first-person narrator reports on the speechlessness and admiration of the inhabitants of Rotterdam and at the same time undermines the truthfulness of Pfaall's account of his journey to the moon with sentences like these: "Hans Pfaall himself, de [r] drunkard [] Schelm, and the three idlers, titled his creditors, [were] seen in a suburban pub just two or three days ago ”(p. 190).

Significance in literary history

Poe's short story obviously had a not inconsiderable influence on Jules Verne, whose novel From the Earth to the Moon (1865) shows recognizable intertextual references and clear similarities or parallels to The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall . It is considered evidence that Poe invented the genre of science fiction.

German translations (selection)

  • 1882: unknown translator: Hans Pfaals wonderful travel adventure. The role model of Jules Verne. In: The Salon for Literature, Art and Society, Leipzig.
  • 1901: Hedda Moeller and Hedwig Lachmann : Hans Pfaals Mondfahrt. JCC Bruns, Minden.
  • 1920: Gisela Etzel : The incomparable adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall. Propylaen Verlag, Munich.
  • 1922: Hans Kauders : The incomparable adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall. Rösl & Cie., Munich.
  • 1960: Helmut Wiemken and Christel Wiemken: The strange adventures of a certain Hans Phaall. German Book Community, Berlin
  • 1966: Hans Wollschläger : The incomparable adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall. Walter Verlag, Freiburg i. Br.
  • 1989: Erika Gröger : The incomparable adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, ISBN 3735101151 .
  • 2017: Andreas Nohl : The unprecedented adventure of a certain Hans Pfaall. dtv, Munich, ISBN 978-3-423-28118-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Adam Roberts : Edgar Allen Poe's Hans Pfaall (see web links).
  2. ↑ The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall was u. a. also included in the collection: The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe , New York 1938 (new edition as Penguin-Taschenbuch 1982, pp. 3-41).
  3. ↑ John Tretsch: Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction! . In: Kevin J. Hayes (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 2002, pp. 115 ff. ISBN 0-521-79727-6
  4. ^ Poe and the Physical Sciences - Poe's Impact on Space Travel . On: lmc.gatech.edu . Accessed on June 24, 2014. See also Adam Roberts : Edgar Allen Poe's Hans Pfaall (see web links).
List of the works of Edgar Allan Poe


Poems

Tamerlane (1827) • Song (1827) • Dreams (1827) • Spirits of the Dead (1827) • Evening Star (1827) • Imitation (1827) • Stanzas (1827) • A Dream (1827) • The Happiest Day (1827 ) • The Lake (1827) • Sonnet — To Science (1829) • Al Aaraaf (1829) • Romance (1829) • To - - (1829) • To The River - (1829) • To M— (1829) • Fairy -Land (1829) • To Helen (1831) • Israfel (1831) • The Sleeping Woman (1831) • The Valley of Unrest (1831) • The City in the Sea (1831) • Enigma (1833) • Serenade (1833) • To - (Sleep On) (1833) • Fanny (1833) • The Coliseum (1833) • To One in Paradise (1834) • To Elizabeth (1835) • To Mary (1835) • Bridal Ballad (1837) • To Zante ( 1837) • The Haunted Palace (1839) • Sonnet - Silence (1840) • The Conqueror Worm (1843) • Lenore (1843) • Dream-Land (1844) • Eulalie (1845) • The Raven (1845) • Impromptu. To Kate Carol (1845) • To - (1845) • The Divine Right of Kings (1845) • Stanzas (1845) (1845) • A Valentine (1846) • To ML S— (1847) • Ulalume (1847) • To Marie Louise (1848) • An Enigma (1848) • The Bells (1849) • A Dream Within a Dream (1849) • For Annie (1849) • Eldorado (1849) • To my Mother (1849) • Annabel Lee (1849) • O, tenses! O, Mores! (1868) • Alone (1875)

Volumes of poetry

Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) • Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems (1829) • Poems (1831) • The Raven and Other Poems (1845)

Stories

Metzengerstein (1832) • The Duc de L'Omelette (1832) • A Tale of Jerusalem (1832) • Loss of Breath (1832) • Bon-Bon (1832) • MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) • The Appointment (1834) • Berenice (1835) • Morella (1835) • Lionizing (1835) • The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835) • King Pest (1835) • Shadow - A Parable (1835) • Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard (1836) • Mystification (1837) • Silence - A Fable (1837) • Ligeia (1838) • How to Write a Blackwood Article (1838) • A Predicament (1838) • The Devil in the Belfry (1839) • The Man That Was Used Up (1839) • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) • William Wilson (1839) • The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) • Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (1840) • The Business Man (1840) • The Man of the Crowd (1840) • The Double Murder on Rue Morgue (1841) • A Descent into the Maelström (1841) • The Island of the Fay (1841 ) • The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1841) • Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1841) • Eleonora (1841) • Three Sundays in a Week (1841) • The Oval Portrait (1842) • The Mask of the Red Death (1842 ) • The Landscape Garden (1842) • The Secret of Marie Rogêt (1842) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) • The Treacherous Heart (1843) • The Gold Beetle (1843) • The Black Cat (1843) • Diddling (1843) • The Spectacles (1844) • A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844) • The Premature Burial (1844) • Mesmeric Revelation (1844) • The Long Box (1844) • The Angel of the Odd (1844) • Thou Art the Man (1844) • The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1844) • The Stolen Letter (1844) • The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1845) • Conversation with a Mummy (1845) • The Power of Words (1845) • The Imp of the Perverse (1845) • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845) • The Facts in the Waldemar Case (1845) • The Sphinx (1846) • The Amontillado Barrel (1846) • The Domain of Arnhem (1847) • Mellonta Tauta (1849) • Hopping Frog (1849) • Von Kempelen and His Discovery (1849) • X-ing a Paragrab (1849) • Landor's Cottage (1849)

Other works

Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) • Morning on the Wissahiccon (1844) • Old English Poetry (1845) • The Philosophy of Composition (1846) • The Poetic Principle (1846) • Heureka (1848) • The Balloon-Hoax (1844) • The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) • The Journal of Julius Rodman ( 1840) • Politian (1835) • The Conchologist's First Book (1839) • The Light-House (1849)