"After incredible labor we succeeded, at length, in getting the long-boat over the side without material accident, and into this we crowded the whole of the crew and most of the passengers. This party made off immediately, and, after undergoing much suffering, finally arrived, in safety, at Ocracoke Inlet, on the third day after the wreck."
It was written in 1844 by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story "The Oblong Box."
 |
| Edgar Allan Poe |
In 1844, it seems, Poe felt no need to identify Ocracoke Inlet. Numerous shipwrecks in the vicinity, notably the 1837 wreck of the steam packet Home, made Ocracoke well known.
"The Oblong Box" is only seven and a half pages long, and, as with all of Poe's works, worth reading.
Out latest Ocracoke Newsletter is the story of the Aleta, Ocracoke's mailboat from 1944-1952, compliments of the Core Sound Museum. Click on the following link for photos, text, and audio recordings about this iconic vessel: http://www.coresound.com/saltwaterconnections/portlight/aleta/
Gee, if we have been following this literary blog we would have remembered that on March 22, 2013 PH posted an entry, The Oblong Box. Well, perhaps we have been following the blog since then but we just Forgot. Why would we forget and can we look forward to a third blog post about Edgar Allan Poe. As I write this weak and weary nothing cheery in my morning brew. out side I hear a tapping something rapping stopping me from Knapping the stone on which I hone a blade. Why the fascination with Poe, another blog I read mentions him often too.
ReplyDeleteHA Anon, yesterday and today -
ReplyDeleteThanks for your two terrific Poeish posts.
I loved them both.