Poe's "Balloon Hoax"

Abstract

JN1924, J. E. HODGSON appended a footnote to his description of the model dirigible balloon which had been exhibited by its maker, Mr. Monck Mason, at the Adelaide Galleries in London in 1843, in which he said: reported success of the model afforded E. A. Poe a hint for his ingenious 'Balloon Hoax' narrative.' This is apparently the earliest mention of a specific source for Poe's story, but just two years later, Mary E. Phillips quoted Thomas 0. Mabbott as follows: W. Norris, U.S.N., stated Poe's hoax depended chiefly on an actual balloon trip made in Nov. 1836 by Monck Mason, Charles Green, and Robert Holland, M.P., who paid for Green's air voyage.' The first printed account of this voyage was published as a pamphlet by Mr. Mason in 1836 in London, and a New York reprint of it published by Theodore Foster in the following year was Poe's chief source.3 The voyage was to Weilburg, Germany. That Poe did use the New York pamphlet, rather than the earlier London one, seems assured when he remarks in the Balloon Hoax that the Weilburg flight occasioned so much excitement in I837.' The Weilburg flight was made in I836, but the New York pamphlet is dated I837. The events which finally culminated in Poe's writing this story seem to me to have been these: While Poe was still in Philadelphia, there took place the demonstrations mentioned above of Monck Mason's motor driven dirigible, which actually flew around the large hall at the rate of six miles an