"One of the Most Intensely Exciting Secrets" - The Antarctic in American Literature 1820-1849

This study examines a small body of early 19th-century American literature set in the Antarctic: Adam Seaborns (pseud.) Symzonia (1820), Edgar Allan Poes MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), Peter Prosperos (pseud.) The Atlantis (1838-39), and James Fenimore Coopers The Monikins (1835) and The Sea Lions (1849).