One of the Tales of the Folio Club which comprised of eleven tales, (although he later claimed that there were sixteen tales). Since the collection was never actually published, and Poe did not leave a table of contents for this collection, the precise tales it contained are the subject of some discussion. Nine of the tales have generally been accepted, while the remaining two are a matter of conjecture. Following each of the tales listed below is the name, in parentheses, of the fictious author from Poe's introduction.
- "Introduction"
- "Lionizing" - (Mabbott gives the author as Mr. Snap. Hammond attributes it to the anonymous narrator.)
- "The Visionary" (later renamed "The Assignation") - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as Convolvulus Gondola.)
- "Bon-Bon" - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as De Rerum Natura.)
- "MS. Found in a Bottle" - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as Mr. Solomon Seadrift.)
- "Metzengerstein" - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as Horrible Dictu.)
- "Loss of Breath" - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as Mr. Blackwood Blackwood.)
- "The Duc de L'Omelette" - (Both Mabbott and Hammond give the author as Mr. Rouge-et-Noir.)
- "Epimanes" (later renamed "Four Beasts in One") - (Mabbott give the author as the unnamed "stout gentleman who admired Sir Walter Scott". Hammond attributes it to Chronolgos Chronology.)
- "Siope--A Fable" (later renamed "Silence--A Fable") - (Mabbott gives the author as the anonymous narrator. Hammond attributes it to the unnamed "very little man in the black coat.")
- T. O. Mabbott gives as the other two tales:
- "Shadow" - (The unnamed "very little man in a black coat.")
- "A Tale of Jerusalem" - (Chronologos Chronology)
- Alexander Hammond gives instead, these tales:
- "Raising the Wind; or Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences" - (Hammond attributes it to Mr. Snap.)
- "King Pest" - (Hammond attributes it to the unnamed "stout gentleman who admired Sir. Walter Scott.")
King Pest begins:
ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London -- which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."
The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in every other respect agreeing with the general character of such places at the period -- was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the grotesque groups scattered here and there within it, sufficiently well adapted to its purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting, if not the most conspicuous.
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