A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

Short story by Edgar Allan Poe

"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains"

Short story by Edgar Allan Poe

Illustration for "Tales and poems - vol.2" published in the 1800s

Country| United States
Language| English
Genre(s)| Adventure
Science fiction
Short story
Publication
Published in| Godey's Lady's Book
Publisher| Louis Antoine Godey
Media type| Magazine
Publication date| 1844

"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" is a fantastical short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. Set near the University of Virginia at Charlottesville (where Poe had spent a year), it is the only one of his stories to take place in Virginia. It was first published in Godey's Lady's Book in April 1844[1] and was included in Poe's short story collection Tales, published in New York by Wiley and Putnam in 1845.

## Plot summary

[edit]

Set in late November 1827, the tale is told in 1845 by an unidentified narrator whose story is the loose outer frame for the central tale of Augustus Bedloe, a wealthy young invalid whom the narrator has known "casually" for eighteen years yet who still remains an enigma. Because of ongoing problems with neuralgia, Bedloe has retained the exclusive services of 70-year-old physician Dr. Templeton, a devotee of Franz Mesmer and the doctrine of animal magnetism, also called "mesmerism".

Augustus Bedloe had met the doctor previously at Saratoga where Bedloe seemed to benefit from Templeton's ministrations. They most likely met in a medical context at the Saratoga mineral springs.

The unidentified narrator recites the tale as told by Bedloe, delivered after his late return from one of his customary long rambles in the Ragged Mountains, "the chain of wild and dreary hills that lie westward and southward of Charlottesville". At 9:00 that morning, after a breakfast of strong coffee and morphine for the pain of his neuralgia, Bedloe leaves Charlottesville and heads towards the Ragged Mountains. About an hour later, he enters a gorge of "absolutely virgin" solitude, filled with a "thick and peculiar mist" in which the visual beauty of his surroundings stands out to him in delightful brilliance as the morphine takes effect.

Soon, Bedloe hears unexpected drumming and a metallic rattling sound after which he is startled when "a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed past... with a shriek" followed by a hyena. Stupefied by this bizarre encounter, Bedloe sits beneath a tree and suddenly notices that its shadow is that of a palm tree not native to Virginia. In "perfect command" of his senses, Bedloe notices a strange odor on the breeze and hears a low murmur after which a wind clears the fog and he sees "an Eastern-looking city, such as we read of in the Arabian Tales" later identified by Dr. Templeton as Benares. Bedloe descends into the city and eventually finds himself barricaded in a kiosk with British officers as a battle rages. In the fighting Bedloe is killed by an arrow shaped like "the writhing creese of the Malay" that strikes him in the temple.

As Bedloe recounts his inexplicable journey and return, Dr. Templeton strangely seems to know the story already. When the unnamed narrator challenges Bedloe's claim of death, the odd rapport between the doctor and the patient becomes evident as Bedloe trembles in pale silence while Templeton stares with bulging eyes and chattering teeth.

Bedloe then describes the physical and mental experiences of disembodiment and re-embodiment punctuated by distinct galvanic shocks, on his return from Calcutta to the Ragged Mountains. Though Bedloe cannot ultimately dismiss his adventure as a dream, the story concludes ambiguously leaving us with suggestions that either the power of Dr. Templeton's writing caused Bedloe's disembodied time-travel experience or that Bedloe is the reincarnation of Templeton's friend Oldeb who died in 1780 fighting alongside Warren Hastings and a group of British soldiers and sepoys during the insurrection of Chait Singh.

The story ends with Bedloe's death by the accidental application of a poisonous "sangsue" (sanguisuge) or leech to relieve a "great determination of blood to the head". The narrator completes the tale with a note of astonished perplexity upon reading the obituary and finding Bedloe's name accidentally spelled without the "e", making "Bedlo" the perfect reverse of "Oldeb".

## Publication history

[edit]

"A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" first appeared in Godey's Lady's Book, April 1844.

The short story first appeared in the April 1844 Godey's Lady's Book. The story also appeared in the November 29, 1845 Broadway Journal. The story was reprinted in the March 23, 1844 Baltimore Weekly Sun, in the March 30, 1844 issue of The Baltimore Sun, the April 27, 1844 Columbia Spy in Columbia, PA, and in 1846 in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and King’s County Democrat, edited by Walt Whitman, in October 9 and 10.[2][3]

There is a French translation (1852) by Charles Baudelaire[4] and a Spanish translation (1956) by Julio Cortázar.[5]

## Critical response

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Some critics, like E. F. Bleiler and Doris V. Falk, criticize the story for its lack of clarity and literary sophistication. They argue that its ambiguity hurts rather than helps its literary quality, especially in the canon of Poe's characteristically well-elaborated works. Other critics look to the focus on mesmerism as a source of its weakness. They argue that it gives the story too scientific a slant that distracts from its strengths in plot and style.[6] One scholar claims that Poe is describing a case of Marfan syndrome in Augustus Bedloe more than five decades before Antoine Marfan presented his first and famous patient, five-year-old Gabrielle, to a French medical association.[7]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001: 231. ISBN 0-8160-4161-X
2. ^ Edgar Allan Poe - "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains". The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.
3. ^ The Walt Whitman Archive. Walt Whitman was the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from March 1846 to January 1848. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
4. ^ “Une Aventure dans les Montagnes Rocheuses”, Translated by Charles Baudelaire, L’Illustration (December 1852); retitled “Les Souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe” in later reprintings.
5. ^ “Un cuento de las Montañas Escabrosas”; Obras completas de Edgar Allan Poe publicadas en dos volúmenes. Editorial Aguilar, 1956 [2004]. Traducción de Julio Cortázar. 21 x 16 cm. Guardas ilustradas. Tomo I. Narrativa (800 páginas; 1289 páginas en total).
6. ^ Falk, Doris V. "Poe and the Power of Animal Magnetism" as collected in PMLA, May 1969. p. 536-546
7. ^ Battle, Robert. "Edgar Allan Poe: A Case Description of Marfan Syndrome in an Obscure Short Story". American Journal of Cardiology. 2011: 108(1):148-9.

## External links

[edit]

* Works related to A Tale of the Ragged Mountains at Wikisource
* Publishing history of "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" from the Edgar Allan Poe Society online
* "Poe, Creator of Words"
* A Tale of the Ragged Mountains public domain audiobook at LibriVox

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Edgar Allan Poe

Bibliography

Poems|

* "Tamerlane" (1827)
* "Al Aaraaf" (1829)
* "Sonnet to Science" (1829)
* "To Helen" (1831)
* "The City in the Sea" (1831)
* "The Haunted Palace" (1839)
* "The Conqueror Worm" (1843)
* "Lenore" (1843)
* "Eulalie" (1843)
* "The Raven" (1845)
* "Ulalume" (1847)
* "A Dream Within a Dream" (1849)
* "Eldorado" (1849)
* "The Bells" (1849)
* "Annabel Lee" (1849)

Tales|

* "Metzengerstein" (1832)
* "The Duc de L'Omelette" (1832)
* "Bon-Bon" (1832)
* "MS. Found in a Bottle" (1833)
* "Berenice" (1835)
* "Morella" (1835)
* "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835)
* "Ligeia" (1838)
* "A Predicament" (1838)
* "The Devil in the Belfry" (1839)
* "The Man That Was Used Up" (1839)
* "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839)
* "William Wilson" (1839)
* "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839)
* "The Business Man" (1840)
* "The Man of the Crowd" (1840)
* "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841)
* "A Descent into the Maelström" (1841)
* "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" (1841)
* "Eleonora" (1841)
* "The Oval Portrait" (1842)
* "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842)
* "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842)
* "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842)
* "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843)
* "The Gold-Bug" (1843)
* "The Black Cat" (1843)
* "The Spectacles" (1844)
* "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" (1844)
* "The Premature Burial" (1844)
* "The Oblong Box" (1844)
* "The Angel of the Odd" (1844)
* "Thou Art the Man" (1844)
* "The Purloined Letter" (1844)
* "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845)
* "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade" (1845)
* "The Imp of the Perverse" (1845)
* "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" (1845)
* "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845)
* "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846)
* "Loss of Breath" (1846)
* "Hop-Frog" (1849)

Essays|

* "Maelzel's Chess Player" (1836)
* "The Philosophy of Furniture" (1840)
* "Morning on the Wissahiccon" (1844)
* "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846)
* "The Poetic Principle" (1846)
* Eureka: A Prose Poem (1848)

Novels|

* The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837)
* The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840)

Collections|

* Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827)
* Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840)

Play|

* Politian (1835)

Other|

* The Conchologist's First Book (1839)
* The Balloon-Hoax (1844)
* The Light-House (1849)

Related|

* Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe (wife)
* Eliza Poe (mother)
* David Poe Jr. (father)
* William Henry Poe (brother)
* Rosalie Mackenzie Poe (sister)
* Poe Museum
* Poe Cottage
* Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum
* National Historic Site
* The Stylus magazine
* Death
* Edgar Awards
* In popular culture
* film and television
* music
* Poe Toaster
* Tales of Mystery & Imagination

Portrayals|

* Edgar Allen Poe (1909 film)
* The Raven (1915 film)
* The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe (1942 film)
* The Man with a Cloak (1951 film)
* Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight (2004 play)
* The Raven (2012 film)
* The Pale Blue Eye (2022 film)

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