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.

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was
impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to
what extent, or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process.
There were other points to be ascertained, but these
most excited my curiosity -the last in especial,
from the immensely important character of its
consequences.
In looking around me for some subject by whose
means I might test these particulars, I was brought
to think of my friend, M. Ernest Valdemar, the wellknown compiler of the Bibliotheca Forensica, and
author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of
the Polish versions of Wallenstein and Gargantua.
M. Valdemar, who has resided principally at Harlem, N. Y., since the year 1839, is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his
person-his lower limbs much resembling those of
John Randolph; and also for the whiteness of his
whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness of his
hair- the latter, in consequence, being very generally
mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly
nervyous, and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions I had
put him to sleep with little difficulty, but was disappointed in other results which his peculiar constitution had naturally led me to anticipate. His will was
at no period positively, or thoroughly, tinder my control, and, in regard to clairvoyance, I could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always
attributed my failure at these points to the disordered
state of his health. For some months previous to
my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians
had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was
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