The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (55 page)

192
Sixty quadrillion in the visible universe:
The exact number was 60,573,000,000,000,000. Dick (1840), 318.

193
“Our terrestrial sovereigns”:
Dick (1838), 247.

193
“May contain a population of intelligent beings”:
Dick (1838), 243.

193
No fewer than 4.2 billion inhabitants:
Dick (1838), 243.

193
“Beautiful diversity”:
Dick (1840), 289.

193
“All the parts uniformly present”:
Dick (1838), 243.

194
A representation of man’s sinful nature:
An article in the
Edinburgh New
Philosophical Journal
from 1826 is entitled “The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, occasioned by Volcanic Agency.”

194
“That such destructive agents exist in the moon”:
Dick (1838), 238.

194
“It is not improbable”:
Dick (1840), 299.

194
“Certain relations, sentiments, dispositions, and virtues”:
Dick (1840), 299.

195
“Beings not much unlike ourselves”:
Dick (1840), 299.

195
“Read with the utmost avidity”:
Barnum (1866), 194.

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195
“Where the Christian religion”:
Tocqueville, 291. Tocqueville saw both strength and weakness in the thoroughgoing nature of American Christianity. One the one hand it tended to maintain a free and democratic republic, and maintain social order and happiness; on the other, it tended to stifle free thought and innovation.

195
“Spiritual necessities”:
Tewksbury, 55.

196
“The forces of irreligion”:
Tewksbury, 66.

196
“A perennial fountain of orthodoxy”:
Tewksbury, 67.

196
“It is most rationally concluded”:
Crowe, 176.

196
“The history of the works of the Deity”:
Daniels, 49.

196
“Receives with gratitude and joy”:
Daniels, 52.

196
“Well adapted to arrest the attention”:
Miller, 278.

196
“More calculated to exalt the soul”:
Miller, 278.

197
“Peculiar mania of the time”:
Barnum (1866), 194.

C HAPTE R 12: “TH E A STR O N O M I CAL H OA X EXP LAI N E D”

199
Encouraging blacks to dress as dandies:
Richards, 114.

199
Shillings:
In the first half of the nineteenth century in New York, the English term “shilling” was used to express a value of twelve and a half cents.

201
From 123,000 to 270,000:
Greene, 15.

202
Reprint the moon series:
For a newspaper to reprint a story that had appeared in another paper was legal and commonplace at the time.

202
“We did not dream”: New-Yorker,
September 2, 1835.

203
“Penny trash”:
O’Brien, 28.

203
A wager of one thousand dollars:
O’Brien, 35.

203
The Native American Democratic Association:
Crouthamel (1969), 59.

208
James Gordon Bennett awoke early:
A description of Bennett’s typical working day can be found in James Parton’s excellent essay, “James Gordon Bennett and the New York Herald.” Parton, 282–283.

208
His birthday had come a day early:
Bennett was born September 1, 1795.

209
A former coal cellar:
Thompson, 33.

212
Bennett had a dilemma:
See the discussion in Seavey, xvii.

213
“Sir John J. H. Herschell”:
This was another error by Bennett. The astronomer’s name was actually John F. W. Herschel—Frederick William, after his father.

213
“Turkey buzzard”:
Carlson, 186.

213
“Moral pestilence”:
Crouthamel (1964), 96.

213
“Lizard looking animal”:
Turner, 14.

214
Day’s brother-in-law Moses Yale Beach:
Beach was married to Day’s sister Nancy.

215
Bound to silence by contract:
Years later Locke’s friend William Griggs wrote that he “must inevitably have been embarrassed in the dilemma of either sustaining a literary fiction by personal assurances amounting to a conscious

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falsehood, or of violating a business contract by exposing a secret no longer, in honor, at his own disposal.” Griggs, 26.

215
“An if is your only peacemaker”:
The quotation is from
As You Like It,
Act V, Scene 4.

215
The mails would soon arrive from Europe:
Griggs, 26.

216
No one had even noticed it:
The flaw remained unnoticed for more than forty years, until the British astronomer Richard A. Proctor pointed it out in his 1878 book
Myths and Marvels of Astronomy.
Proctor, 251. Proctor, it must be said, got many other details wrong, including misidentifying the author of the series as “Richard Alton Locke.”

216
“Suffered severely”:
Griggs, 26.

216
The taproom of the Washington Hotel:
In his book
The Story of the Sun,
Frank O’Brien wrote that the conversation took place either in the taproom of the Washington Hotel or in the
Sun
office. O’Brien, 55. Locke’s admission would more likely have come away from the office.

216
A reporter friend of his named Finn:
Finn’s first name is no longer known.

216
“Don’t print it right away”:
O’Brien, 55.

C HAPTE R 13: M O O N S H I N E

217
“The name of the author”: Every Saturday,
March 11, 1871, 235.

218
“The Great Hoax”:
For the titles of many newspaper stories, see Bjork, 24.

218
Most widely circulated newspaper story:
Hughes, 184.

218
“As if their appetite had increased”:
“Why, she would hang on him / As if increase of appetite had grown / by what it fed on.”
Hamlet,
1.2.

219
A recently published paper:
Proctor, 260.

220
“The British government at Botany-bay”:
At the time, the term “Botany Bay” denoted an Australian penal colony.

221
A stage lit entirely by gas:
O’Brien, 73.

222
Painted gold in the front:
Burrows and Wallace, 486.

222 Moonshine, or Lunar Discoveries: There is a brief discussion of the play in Odell, 4:72.

222
Henry Hanington:
His last name was often misspelled “Hannington,” by the
Sun,
among others.

224
Sixteen traveling menageries:
Information about the menageries of the 1830s can be found in the circus magazine
Bandwagon
35, no. 6 (November–

December 1991), 64–71; and 36, no. 1 (January–February 1992), 31–36.

224
First to exhibit a giraffe: Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
June 22, 1857, 2.

224
Where he might find Sir John Herschel:
The story of the meeting between Weeks and Herschel is recounted in some detail in Griggs, 37–39.

224
His observatory was some five miles away:
Evans, 40.

224
“A person possessed of a fund of humor”: Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
June 22, 1857, 2.

226
“As I perceive by an Advertisement”:
Ruskin, 97.

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227
“I have been pestered from all quarters”:
Evans, 282.

227
Received copies of the
Sun’
s pamphlet:
William Griggs claimed that the pamphlets had been sent by “the shrewd proprietors of the Sun,” in the hopes, presumably, that the European papers would reprint the story and thus buttress the
Sun’
s claims. Griggs does not cite the proprietors by name, but they undoubtedly included Benjamin Day, as shrewd a businessman as there was in New York’s newspaper district. Griggs, 34.

227
“With all the gravity and reserve”:
Griggs, 35.

227
Some of the interior parts of Germany:
Griggs, 35.

229
No fewer than four editions:
References to the four French-language editions can be found in Sohncke, 258.

229
His friend John Herschel:
The two had first met in 1821, when Herschel was traveling in France. Clerke, 150.

230
“If one asked me”:
Crowe, 246.

230
“Repeated interruptions”:
Griggs, 33.

230
“Utterly incredible”:
After the passage of the resolution Arago received a letter from John Herschel. “I beg you to accept my sincere thanks for your good offices,” he wrote, “although in truth I must regret that time as precious as yours should be thus employed. Since there are some people silly enough to believe any wild story anyone sells them, we must wish that the stories should always be as harmless as this; in any case, I am not disposed to complain seriously about an event which has reminded me of you and which has established you as my defender.” Seavey, xxii.

231
History would more often accord:
In his study of nineteenth-century science fiction, H. Bruce Franklin observed, “Poe has continually been called, both in America and Europe, the father of the genre.” Franklin, 93.

232
“Have you seen the ‘Discoveries in the Moon’?”:
Ostrum, 1:73.

C HAPTE R 14: M O N C K MA S O N’S F LYI N G MAC H I N E

233
A salary of $520 a year:
Ostrum, 1:73.

233
“In a state of starvation”:
Woodberry, 66.

234
“My feelings at this moment”:
Ostrum, 1:73.

234
Biting his nails to the quick:
Pope-Hennessy, 153.

234
“Miserable” and “wretched”:
Ostrum, 1:73.

234
“More than yourself have remarked”:
Thomas and Jackson, 170.

235
“Philosophical blunders”:
Spannuth and Mabbott, 54.

235
“No sooner had I seen the paper”:
Harrison (1902), 15:128.

235
A comic scene:
For instance, the president and vice president of the Rotterdam College of Astronomy, to whom Hans Phaall addresses his letter, are named Von Underduk and Rubadub.

235
“Half plausible, half bantering”:
Harrison (1902), 15:128.

236
Encyclopedias and earlier travel narratives:
See the discussion in Pollin, 17–19, 286–299.

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236
One-fifth of the entire book:
Pollin, 17.

236
“Bare-faced and barbarous plagiarism”:
Silverman, 146.

236
“Nothing yet appears”:
Jackson (1974), 47. Remarkably enough, the report’s author, Robert Greenhow, was a native of Richmond, Virginia, who contributed various travel sketches to the
Southern Literary Messenger
from 1834 to 1836; during that time he must have either met Edgar Allan Poe or corresponded with him. Greenhow’s error would eventually be corrected: when his Senate report was published in book form four years later, it did not contain references to Julius Rodman or his illfated expedition.

236
Gold fever then gripping the country:
Gold was discovered in California in 1848, the year before the publication of Poe’s story “Von Kempelen and His Discovery.”

237
“Last night, for supper”:
Ostrum, 1:251–252.

238
Romantic fiction:
Burrows and Wallace, 640.

238
Fifty dollars:
Nichols, 1:348.

239
The story itself:
The complete Balloon Hoax can be found in Harrison (1902), 5:224–240.

241
A balloon trip across the English Channel:
Scudder (1949), 181–182.

241
Taken place in 1837:
Scudder (1949), 226.

241
Pamphlet that accompanied the exhibition:
The pamphlet was published anonymously but was likely written by Monck Mason. Wilkinson, 313.

241
“An ellipsoid or solid oval”:
This quote, and the others that follow, are from Wilkinson, 314–317.

241
More than one-quarter of Poe’s balloon story:
Franklin, 94.

242
“Made a far more intense sensation”:
Spannuth and Mabbott, 33.

243
“Water cure”:
This involved the use of cold water (for drinking and bathing) in a spa-like clinic for the treatment of various illnesses.

243
“A man of much talent”:
Spannuth and Mabbott, 32.

243
“A man of rare genius”:
Nichols, 1:348.

244
“The publisher, as is the American custom”:
Ibid.

244
“I love fame”:
Allen, 571.

244
Nichols’s version is the more likely one:
This is the argument advanced by Doris V. Falk in her brief article “Thomas Low Nichols, Poe, and the ‘Balloon Hoax,’”
Poe Studies
5, no. 2 (December 1972).

245
“Poe’s account of the publication”:
Spannuth and Mabbott, 36.

245
“Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences”:
The quotes from the essay can be found in Harrison (1902) 5:210–223.

245
“Childish and almost unbalanced delight”:
Allen, 463.

246
“The rabble”:
Spannuth and Mabbott, 34.

246
“Nothing intelligible can be written”:
Silverman, 164.

247
Maelzel’s automaton chess player:
Tom Standage wrote an insightful book-length history of the automaton chess player,
The Turk.
See also W. K. Wimsatt Jr.’s essay; and Cook, 30–72.

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247
Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen:
In tribute to him, Poe named the protagonist of his lead-into-gold hoax Baron von Kempelen.

248
“Maelzel’s Chess-Player”:
The entire essay can be found in Harrison (1902), 14:6–37.