The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL

jurer, both of whose ears, for some misdemeanor, have
been cut off close to his head, has been missing for
several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.
Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck
all over the little balloon, were newspapers of Holland,
and therefore could not have been made in the moon.
They were dirty papers - very dirty - and Gluck, the
printer, would take his bible oath to their having been
printed in Rotterdam.
Fourthly. That Hans Pfaall himself, the drunken
villain, and the three very idle gentlemen styled his
creditors, were all seen, no longer than two or three
days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs, having
just returned, with money in their pockets, from a trip
beyond the sea.
Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought to be generally received, that
the College of Astronomers in the city of Rotterdam,
as well as all other colleges in all other parts of the
world, - not to mention colleges and astronomers in
general,- are, to say the least of the matter, not a
whit better. nor greater, nor wiser than they ought
to be.
NOTE.-Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity
between the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated
" Moon-Story " of Mr. Locke; but as both have the character of hoaxes (although the one is in a tone of banter, the
other of downright earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the
same subject, the moon- moreover, as both attempt to
give plausibility by scientific detail - the author of " Hans
Pfaall" thinks it necessary to say, in self-defence, that his
own jeu d'esprit was published, in the " Southern Literary
Messenger," about three weeks before the commencement
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