This story is made up of philosophical discourse between two entities focusing on religion and science. I believe that Edgar Allan Poe wrote these kinds of stories of a way of documenting his thoughts. The conversation seems to be similar to those that we would hear if two inebriated scientists debated about the origin of life. It is always refreshing to read differing opinions on life.
I rate this story a 2.5 out of 5.
If you enjoy reading about conjecture from over a hundred and fifty years ago then you might enjoy this story, but I didn't. The story focuses on a chess-playing device from the time aptly named "The Turk". It was quite the enigma as it seemed to be completely mechanical. Edgar Allan Poe seems to do a great job of guessing how it works. He believes that the device is not mechanical at all and that there is a man inside of the machine. This actually proved to be true.
This story, written by Edgar Allan Poe, focuses on a superb and supernal specimen of a human being named Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith that the narrator must know more about, but each time he is about to get some answers, he is interrupted and the conversation shifts. The story is rather humorous as the narrator goes from individual to individual asking about the perfect man but never receiving a proper answer. Finally, he resolves to ask the man himself and in so doing so reveals what he so much desired without a word being spoken.
The Business Man is a humorous story written by Edgar Allan Poe about an ambitious and highly opinionated young man that can't seem to hold a decent job. Each job that he leaves he seems to find another that has even less dignity. Finally, he gets a break when a law is passed granting money for cat tails, as cats seem to be overpopulating the city. He starts a "cat farm" by harvesting cat tails, claiming to get a stock of about 3 a year per cat. I guess in this world a cat's tail is regenerated like the tail of a salamander.
This story was another pleasant surprise written by Edgar Allan Poe. The narrator is a gentleman that happens to live a thousand years in the future. He humorously describes events of the past, often associating people and countries with incorrect names, though you can easily guess at their true owners. He states that there were two dominant philosophers, Aries Tottle and Hog. These names have probably been broken through time to describe Aristotle and Francis Bacon.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if something figurative became literal? Figurative expressions such as "I would lose my head" or "I'd give an arm and a leg". Well in this interesting tale, the narrator literally loses his breath, and in doing so he embarks on quite the misadventure.
Quite odd indeed. This story focuses on a man that becomes enraged when he reads an article he believes is a farce due to the oddities that occurred. He is then visited by the Angle of the Odd, an entity made out of a cask and some wine bottles (apparently the same bottles the narrator must have chugged to see such a thing). The man then has a very odd evening. First, he oversleeps and misses his appointment to renew his fire insurances. Upon awakening, he finds that his house is on fire. He escapes from the window only to have the ladder fall out from under him.
This story wasn't very interesting to me. It is about a man named Touch-and-go Bullet-head that moves into a town called Alexander-theGreat-o-nopolis in order to start a newspaper. He quickly finds that there is already a newspaper in town called the Gazette. They start attacking each other through their periodicals and eventually they accidentally create an enigma that perplexes the citizens of the town. There really isn't too much more to the story, at least from what I got out of it.
Diddling describes the many ways in which a diddler operated at the time of Poe's life. Poe describes the necessary ingredients of being a diddler as minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin. He obviously believed that diddlers are quite the intellectuals, and I would agree with him. My particular favorite ingredient description was for ingenuity:
This short story focuses on one Thingum Bob, a son of a brilliant and successful businessman. One day after reading an ingenious poem Thingum decides that he wants to become an editor and a poet. Thingum is portrayed as a spoiled brat. When he sends his first poem to four different publishers he demands immediate publication and prompt pay. This, of course, vexes the publishers and they write responses severely criticizing Thingums poem and request for payment.