1850
HANS PHAALL
by Edgar Allan Poe
There is, strictly speaking, but little similarity between this
sketchy trifle and the very celebrated and very beautiful "Moon-story"
of Mr. Locke- but as both have the character of hoaxes, (although one
is in the tone of banter, the other of downright earnest) and as
both hoaxes are on the same subject, the moon- the author of "Hans
Phaall" thinks it necessary to say, in self-defence, that his own
jeu-d'esprit was published, in the Southern Literary Messenger,
about three weeks previously to the appearance of Mr. L's in the New
York "Sun." Fancying a similarity which does not really exist, some of
the New York papers copied "Hans Phaall," and collated it with the
Hoax- with the view of detecting the writer of the one in the writer
of the other.
By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpected- so entirely novel- so
utterly at variance with preconceived opinions- as to leave no doubt
on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics
in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.
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