Is this the wellspring of American horror fiction? Poe's novel lays down the tropes -- the individual in extremis, a spirit of scientific speculation in tension with racial panic -- that Lovecraft would develop later (the business with the sea cucumbers must have given HPL a horripilating charge). Curious to know what Melville thought of this. A deeply racist book, perhaps best read in cold blood, in spite of which arises a warm admiration for Poe's inventiveness.