Need as much detail as possible as to Poe's sources for this late unfinished work. Have gone to the Moskene site(the Maelstrom islands)and researched the Norwegian political situation. A lighthouse was destroyed on the Lofoten, Moskene islands about the date of the story, but I can find no details.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Answers

I may err, but since I have discovered, a long time ago, in the "Fraser's Mag." for April, 1849, (vol. XXXIX, pp 342 & sq.), a curious text on "EDDYSTONE" ("Episode in the History of Eddystone Lighthouse"), I remain convinced that this has been a major source for Poe's "Light-house" -- together with those mentioned by Mabbott. This attractive sketch so much echoed with some facts of poor Eddie's own life, that, to my mind, it must have given him a sufficiently good impetus for a new tale... left unfinished. This well-managed anecdote has apparently known a real success, for it was reprinted in "Littell's Living Age" (Boston - vol. XXI, pp 460 & sq.), and in the "Eclectic Mag." (NY - vol. XVII, pp212 & sq.). It was even translated into French for a later number of the "Revue Britannique" (Dec., 1849). Strangely enough, I have never read anything about it. Check it, enjoy it, and judge it by yourself. In any case (if correct), it could definitively prove that the "Ligth- house" was written during Poe's very last months. P.S. To my knowledge, nobody has pointed out that "De Grät" is pronounced like "DEGRADE" - "to degrade", the geological term for "to crumble" and the like, a really appropriate sense to the "De Grät's prophecy"... We may suppose, indeed, that some catastrophe is implied by the chalk-basement. And if we go farther with punnings, maybe that "chalk" suggests "credit" too, the narrator's life seeming thus to depend upon chalk/credit -- perecisely Poe's recurrent situation, in late 1849, when trying one more time to launch his cherished "Stylus"... Amazing metaphor, isn't it? Poe was so fond of manifold meanings! Yours sincerely, Raven's Shade (Belgium).

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

True mourner or low-level mariner??

Blah, blah, blah

What is the link between the lighthouse and the North? The AURORA BOREALIS; no less, no more.

Blabber from New-sealand.

originally established in arial font

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001