Haunted Eyes to the Cosmos

The
Comets of
Poe had some weird ideas for dead

Donald W. Olson
& Shaun B. Ford

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) is a legend in American

literature for his poetry and tales of the macabre and
grotesque. He invented the horror story and the detec-
tive story. Less well known are his fascination with
astronomy and the astronomical references, occasionally
even obsessions, that appear throughout his work.
For example, Tycho’s supernova of 1572 inspired the
poem “Al Aaraaf” (1829). “The Unparalleled Adventure
of One Hans Pfaall” (1835) tells the story of a voyage to
the Moon by balloon; along the way it discusses zodia-
cal light, the inclination of the Moon’s orbital plane, and
possible explanations for secular changes in the orbit of
Encke’s Comet. In a signature scene at the beginning of
Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), as the char-
acters walk through Paris they cast their “eyes upward to
the great nebula in Orion.” Poe remarks on the immense
distances to the stars and the light-travel times from
Sirius and 61 Cygni in his footnotes to various editions
of “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade”
(1845 and 1850).
Poe’s book-length Eureka (1848) is a passionate
polemic on physical cosmology long before the field
was invented. In fl ights of mystical imagination and
philosophical mania, Poe declares that the universe
is arranged as an enormous “cluster of clusters,” the
clusters being
merely what we have been in practice of designating “nebu-
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: S&T / PAT COPPOLA

lae” and, of these “nebulae”, one is of paramount interest to

mankind. I allude to the Galaxy, or Milky Way. [...] The Galaxy,
let me repeat, is but one of the clusters which I have been
describing — but one of the mis-called “nebulae” revealed
to us — by the telescope alone, sometimes — as faint hazy
spots in various quarters of the sky. We have no reason to
suppose the Milky Way really more extensive than the least of
these “nebulae”.

30 December 2016 sky & telescope

Edgar Allan Poe
spirits to converse upon. Where did he get them?

Unlike any astronomers of his day, Poe further pro- lunacy or “a damnable heresy,” but Poe considered it his
claims an evolving big-bang universe, with greatest life work. He wrote to his aunt Maria Clemm,
“I have no desire to live since I have done Eureka. I could
Matter’s having been radiated, at its origin, atomically [i.e., as
accomplish nothing more.” In fact he wrote little further,
a gas], into a limited sphere of Space, from one, individual,
nearly died of an opiate overdose, then died the following
unconditional, irrelative, and absolute Particle Proper.
year of causes unknown.
Poe uses an anthropic-principle argument to assert that In more ancillary roles, Poe had repeatedly brought
the universe must be extremely old in order for us to be the Moon, constellations, and planets into his poems,
here observing it. Yet it cannot be so old that it would such as “Evening Star” (1827) and “Ulalume” (1847)
violate Olbers’ paradox; Poe anticipates an essential part — both of which compare and contrast the Moon and
of the modern resolution of the paradox when he offers Venus — and into many other writings. The cosmos
this explanation of why the night sky is dark: entranced him and excited his deepest mysticism.
Were the succession of stars endless, then the background
of the sky would present us an uniform luminosity, like that
displayed by the Galaxy — since there could be absolutely no
point, in all that background, at which would not exist a star.
The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a state of
affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes
find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the
distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray
from it has yet been able to reach us at all.

Although he subtitled Eureka a “prose-poem” rather

than an essay on science, Poe was convinced that he had
unmasked the plan of God: the universe expands from
a point-like beginning in “one instantaneous flash,”
with stars then “condensing into visibility from invisible
SEAN SWEENEY, RAVEN GRAPHIC: BIGSTOCKPHOTOS.COM/FOSIN

nebulosity.” Gravity pulls stars and gas into galaxies,

while the galaxies separate from each other. The uni-
verse evolves through our present state and a future in
which stars will “grow grey in giving birth and death to
unspeakably numerous and complex variations of vitalic
development,” eventually achieving an unknown Divine
Will, before all finally recollapses into a singular point
under Newton’s law of gravity, “with a velocity accumu-
lating in the inverse proportion of the squares of the
distances at which lay the inevitable End.”
Reviewers savaged the book, calling it unreadable

STAR-WINDS Edgar Allan Poe again walks the streets of Boston. This statue, created by artist Stefanie Rocknak and unveiled by
the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston in 2014, stands on the edge of the Boston Common near the intersection of Boylston and
Charles Streets. Every night Poe’s fictional raven, emerging from the restless traveler’s suitcase, casts his lamplit shadow on the floor.

Sk yandTelescope.com December 2016 31

 Haunted Eyes to the Cosmos

“The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”

Poe had a thing for comets in particular. Our astronomi-
cal history group at Texas State University became espe-
cially intrigued by the extensive references to comets in
“The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,” a short story
first published in the December 1839 issue of Burton’s
Gentleman’s Magazine. The tale takes the form of a
dialogue between two spirits, male and female, adrift
in a heavenly realm. An apocalyptic event has destroyed
humanity and terrestrial life; the agent of destruction
was a comet on a path that “would bring it into very close
proximity with the earth.” As the comet drew closer,
scholars had reassured the world that comets were
“vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity. . . altogether
incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even
in the event of contact.” The end indeed came not by a
collision, but by the comet’s atmosphere mingling with
Earth’s, extracting all the nitrogen, and replacing it with
pure oxygen. The result was a “final destruction of all
things by fire. . . . A combustion irresistible, all-devour-
GIUSEPPE NACCARI, ATLANTE ASTRONOMICO (1904)

ing, omni-prevalent, immediate. . . the whole incumbent

mass of ether in which we existed burst at once into a
species of intense flame. . . . Thus ended all.”
RAIN OF BIELIDS Biela’s Comet never collided with
This discourse in the afterlife includes some very
the Earth — but fragments of it did! The comet was due specific scientific references to the composition of the
back in 1872. Instead the world received a meteor storm, atmosphere and to the orbits and physical properties of
with several thousand visible per hour radiating from the comets. We became curious about what motivated Poe to
predicted direction of the comet’s approach. write this particular tale. Could we determine the books
from which he derived his scientific statements? Could
we identify the actual comets that inspired him?
Meteor Storms in 1872 and 1885
Although Biela’s Comet itself never struck Earth, Earth’s Atmosphere
this comet had an unusually interesting history after We started our hunt with a pioneering study by Marga-
Poe’s story — and fragments of it did light up Earth’s ret Alterton, who pointed out that Poe’s passages about
atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere and combustion came from The
Biela’s Comet was not observed during its unfa- Christian Philosopher by Thomas Dick (1774–1857):
vorable predicted return near its perihelion pas-
Of 100 measures of atmospheric air, 21 are oxygen, and 79
sage in 1839. But during its apparition of 1845–46,
nitrogen. The one, namely, oxygen, is the principle of combus-
Matthew Fontaine Maury was astonished to see
tion, and the vehicle of heat, and is absolutely necessary for the
that the comet had split into two components that
support of animal life, and is the most powerful and energetic
moved together and developed parallel tails as they
agent in nature. . . . If the nitrogen were extracted from the air,
approached the Sun. There were reports of a bridge
and the whole atmosphere contained nothing but oxygen. . .
of material between them. Both main objects were
combustion would not proceed in that gradual manner which
recovered at their 1852 return, but after that year they
it now does, but with the most dreadful and irresistible rapid-
were never seen again.
ity. . . instantly a universal conflagration would commence. . . .
Then on November 27, 1872, the very date when
Earth passed closest to the comet’s orbit, astrono- In “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion,” Eiros
mers were again astonished as fragments of the repeats this passage almost verbatim:
disintegrated Biela’s Comet produced a spectacular
. . .the air which encircled us was a compound of oxygen and
meteor storm. A similar rain of meteors fell from the
nitrogen gases, in the proportion of twenty-one measures of
sky on November 27, 1885. The meteors are known
oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen in every one hundred
as the Bielids or Andromedids, after the constellation
of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of com-
containing the radiant. Occasionally the shower is
bustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to
still weakly active.
the support of animal life, and was the most powerful and

32 December 2016 sky & telescope

 FEARFUL SPECTACLE Above: After its perihelion passage in February, the Great Comet of 1843 developed a spectacularly
long tail. This chromolith from Amédée Guillemin’s The World of Comets (1877) shows the appearance of the comet under
Orion and in front of Sirius on March 19, 1843. Right: Two weeks later Poe reprinted his cometary tale of Eiros and Charmion,
now with the title “The Destruction of the World [A Conversation between two Departed Spirits]”, on the front page of a news-
paper called the Philadelphia Saturday Museum for April 1, 1843.
meteor showers until 1866, when Giovanni Schiaparelli
energetic agent in nature. . . . What would be the result of a
(1835–1910) showed that the Perseid meteors and Comet
total extraction of the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible, all-
Swift-Tuttle share very similar orbits. Poe would not have
devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate. . . .
been able to associate a meteor shower with the approach
of a comet. And the Leonids do not fit the story.
The Leonids of 1833?
What astronomical phenomenon might have inspired Halley’s Comet? Encke’s Comet?
Poe to think about fire in the atmosphere? Biographer Arthur Quinn offered as an alternate theory that Poe
Arthur Quinn suggested “the rain of meteors visible in “probably saw Halley’s Comet in 1835.” Several more
Baltimore in the early morning of November 13, 1833. . . . recent commentators also endorse the idea of Halley’s
The dread on the part of some of the beholders that the Comet as inspiration for the story. In his notes to the
end of the world was at hand. . . might easily have sug- tale, Poe scholar Thomas Mabbott also argued that Poe
gested to Poe the description by Eiros of the comet which might have been interested in Encke’s Comet, because
brings destruction to the world.” “its periodicity had been calculated,” it had returned in
The Leonid meteor storm of 1833 was indeed a spectacu- 1838, and it “was expected again in 1842.”
lar event. However, Poe wrote about a comet, and astrono- Poe’s astronomical references in other works dem-
mers did not make the connection between comets and onstrate that he was aware of both Halley’s and Encke’s
comets. But neither of those posed a threat to collide
with Earth.
We wondered: Did any other comet, known in the
AMÉDÉE GUILLEMIN. THE WORLD OF COMETS (1877)

1830s, have an orbit that intersected or nearly intersected

Earth’s orbit?
Eventually we realized that only one comet matched
this requirement of Poe’s story.

Biela’s Comet
Biela’s Comet was first observed in 1772 by Jacques Leibax
Montaigne. It received its name in 1826 when Wilhelm
von Biela and Jean-Félix Adolphe Gambart identified it
as periodic. The comet was observed in 1832 and its next
return was predicted for 1839, the year Poe’s tale appeared.
BEING GASSED The astronomer Heinrich Olbers remarked in
1828 that Biela’s Comet “may pass at a very small distance from An essential point of the Eiros and Charmion story is
us, and even so near, that its atmosphere may be in contact with that Poe’s fictional comet passes so close that its atmo-
our globe.” This diagram illustrates the possibility, with Biela’s sphere mingles with ours. Exactly such a possibility was
Comet making a hypothetical close passage (C to C′) that allows discussed in the scientific literature of the 1820s and
its atmosphere to mix with that of Earth (T = Terre = Earth). 1830s for Biela’s Comet.

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 Haunted Eyes to the Cosmos

The other comet of short period which has lately been discov-
ered is that of Biela . . . Its orbit, by a remarkable coincidence,
very nearly intersects that of the earth; and had the latter, at
the time of its passage in 1832, been a month in advance of
COURTESY POE HOUSE BALTIMORE, INC. (2)
its actual place, it would have passed through the comet — a
singular rencontre, perhaps not unattended with danger.

Poe himself said that he had read John Herschel’s

book; one of Poe’s later essays describes events in the
summer of 1835: “Harpers had issued an American
edition of Sir John Herschel’s ‘Treatise on Astronomy,’
and I had been much interested in what is there said
LOOKING DEEP This small refractor, reputed to be the instru- respecting the possibility of future lunar investigations.
ment Poe used to study the heavens as a teen, is displayed at the . . . I longed to write a story embodying these dreams.”
Poe House museum in Baltimore. The telescope and its pillar- Thus resulted his 1835 story about Hans Pfaall’s balloon
and-claw stand were made by the London firm of Thomas Blunt
voyage to the Moon.
and brought back from England by Poe’s foster father, John Allan.
Poe’s inspiration for using a comet as a world-ending
agent almost certainly came from his reading about
Heinrich Olbers, the astronomer most associated Biela’s Comet, possibly in The American Journal of Sci-
today with “Olbers’ paradox,” remarked about Biela’s ence but more likely in the books by Elijah Burritt and
Comet in The American Journal of Science: “at some time John Herschel.
the comet may pass at a very small distance from us,
and even so near, that its atmosphere may be in contact Lexell’s Comet
with our globe. ” Joseph Johann von Littrow, writing in However, another intriguing passage in “The Conver-
the same journal during 1833, pointed out: “Of all the sation of Eiros and Charmion” doesn’t fit at all with
comets which are known to astronomers, that of Biela is the behavior of Biela’s Comet. As Poe’s fictional comet
the only one whose orbit is such as to admit of its ever approaches Earth, scientists offer reassurances that
coming in contact with the Earth. This is a circumstance nothing need be feared. Says Eiros,
which renders that body an object of deep and peculiar
The very moderate density of these bodies had been well
interest to the inhabitants of our globe.”
established. They had been observed to pass among the satel-
Poe could conceivably have seen these notes in a
lites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration
scientific journal. But to find more likely candidates for
either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary plan-
Poe’s reading, we surveyed popular astronomy books
ets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations
from the 1830s. Probably the most famous were the mul-
of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing
tiple editions of Elijah Hinsdale Burritt’s The Geography
injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact.
of the Heavens, issued in large printings in 1833, 1836,
1838, and later years. (Peggy Aldrich Kidwell surveyed As the comet draws even closer to Earth, reassurances
the Burritt volumes and their enthusiastic public recep- are repeated:
tion in Sky & Telescope for January 1985.)
. . . the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the satel-
The 1838 edition of Burritt’s book includes language
lites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which
identifying Biela’s Comet as a perfect candidate for Poe’s
served greatly to allay terror.
fictional destroyer:
. . . the path of Biela’s comet passes very near to that of the
Earth. . . the matter of the comet extends beyond that path
. . . Thus, if the Earth were at that point of its orbit which is
Lexell’s Comet & Earth
nearest to the path of the comet, at the same moment that Poe’s story alludes to the remarkable 1779 passage of
the comet should be at that point of its orbit which is near-
Lexell’s Comet through Jupiter’s satellite system. Nine
years earlier, this same comet also had an exceptional
est to the path of the Earth, the Earth would be enveloped in
encounter with Earth. On July 1, 1770, Lexell’s Comet
the nebulous atmosphere of the comet. . . . This is the comet
passed Earth at a distance of only 0.0151 a.u., about
which was to come into collision with the Earth, and to blot it
6 times the distance of the Moon. This ranks as the
out from the Solar System.
closest approach of a comet to our planet in recorded
British astronomer John Herschel in 1833 published history. But its subsequent very close encounter with
a popular book titled A Treatise on Astronomy. In 1834 an Jupiter — quite a coincidence! — tugged it into an
American edition appeared with a passage related to a orbit that will keep it from coming close to us again.
recent “comet panic” caused by Biela’s Comet:

34 December 2016 sky & telescope

 Poe almost certainly derived these passages from the
1834 Philadelphia edition of John Herschel’s popular
Eudosia & Neander
book. Herschel describes an encounter between Lexell’s Our search of popular astronomy books available to
Comet and Jupiter thusly: Poe turned up one more worth mentioning: James Fer-
guson’s An Easy Introduction to Astronomy for Young
In the case of the remarkable comet of 1770, which was found
Gentlemen and Ladies, published in Philadelphia in 1819.
by Lexell to revolve in a moderate ellipse in the period of
It takes the form of a dialogue between a brother and
about 5 years, and whose return was predicted by him accord-
sister named Neander and Eudosia, and their thoughtful
ingly, the prediction was disappointed by the comet actually
conversation includes the following reassurance about
getting entangled among the satellites of Jupiter, and being
the danger of comets:
completely thrown out of its orbit by the attraction of that
planet, and forced into a much larger ellipse. By this extraor- Eudosia: But, as we were talking about the comets, pray,
dinary rencontre, the motions of the satellites suffered not are they not dangerous? We are always frightened when we
the least perceptible derangement — a sufficient proof of the hear of their appearing, lest their fiery trains should burn
smallness of the comet’s mass. the world.

Elijah Burritt’s 1838 edition cites Herschel’s words

Neander: That is owing to People’s not knowing better. . . .
and summarizes this passage as “sufficient proof of the
And, as to those appearances, which are called the tails
aeriform nature of the comet’s mass.” So Poe’s mention
of the comets, they are only thin vapours, which arise
of a comet “observed to pass among the satellites of Jupi-
from the comets, and which could not hurt any planet, if it
ter” was definitely inspired by Lexell’s Comet.
should happen to go through that vapour when the comet
Stars Visible Through Comets is crossing the plane in which the planet’s orbit lies. . . .

Another passage from Poe’s dialogue of the dead offers

Eudosia: This is comfortable doctrine, indeed.
reassurance about the low density of comets in a differ-
ent way altogether: Poe’s format for the dialogue of Eiros and Charmion,
and its remarks on academics who claimed that comets
The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent;
are too tenuous to be harmful, may have been in part
for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it.
inspired by Ferguson’s book for young readers.
Once again Poe was apparently influenced by Herschel: It appeared when Poe was ten. During the next few
years, while being educated under his stepfather John
Stars of the smallest magnitude remain distinctly visible,
Allan, Poe studied the heavens with a telescope (likely
though covered by what appears to be the densest portion of
the one pictured on the facing page). Did he possess this
their substance; although the same stars would be completely
book to go with it?
obliterated by a moderate fog, extending only a few yards from
the surface of the earth. . . . It will then be evident that the most
unsubstantial clouds which float in the highest regions of our
The Geography of the Heavens, and John Herschel’s A
atmosphere . . . must be looked upon as dense and massive
Treatise on Astronomy, all available to him in the 1830s.
bodies compared with the filmy and all but spiritual texture of
The details about comets are based on the characteristics
a comet.
of Biela’s and Lexell’s comets.
Herschel described his own observations of Biela’s Then after we completed this work, we discovered
Comet on September 23, 1832: that we were not the first! In 1963, Elva Baer Kremen-
liev at UCLA submitted a Ph.D. thesis, “The Literary
. . . it passed directly over a small cluster or knot of minute
Uses of Astronomy in the Writings of Edgar Allan Poe.”
stars of the 16th or 17th magnitude [sic] . . . the stars of the
She used John Herschel’s 1834 American edition as a
cluster being visible through the comet.
source and connected “The Conversation of Eiros and
Charmion” to both Biela’s Comet and Lexell’s Comet. ✦
A more striking proof could not have been offered of the ex-
treme translucency of the matter of which this comet consists.
Don Olson is author of Celestial Sleuth, which includes
The most trifling fog would have entirely effaced this group of
many of his Sky & Telescope articles (Springer, 2014) and
stars; yet they continued visible. . . .
the forthcoming Celestial Sleuth: Further Adventures
(Springer, 2017). He teaches physics and astronomy at
Conclusions Texas State University, where Shaun Ford is a graduate
So we are confident that the mystery is settled. The student in English and Philosophy. The authors are grateful
scientific passages in Poe’s 1839 story were derived from for research assistance from Margaret Vaverek at Texas
Thomas Dick’s The Christian Philosopher, Elijah Burritt’s State University’s Alkek Library.

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