nature, they render an effect of listening to their delivery rather than merely reading them, especially as they are often sewn back into the thread of the story via an expression such as one make in an oral presentation. The above passage, for example, is tied back into the narrative by "But to return from this digression." Of the three pieces examined, Poe's is the least overt in the narrative features described. His approach has more inventive aspects to it, and while it also differs most radically in detail and content, Arthur Gordon Pym, put alongside the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, seems to suggest a step into more modern story-telling. This proposition is easily evidenced in face of the widely accepted viewpoint that Poe was the first true developer of the mystery or crime story. And if he is the most modern and his narrative style the least similar to that of either Melville or Hawthorne in the sense described earlier, than this trait of conversational address throughout a text may be all the more considered as emblematic of fiction in nineteenth century America. ...
