Unfinished serialized novel written in 1840.
Illustration for “Israfel” (Edmund Dulac)
SYNOPSIS
The unfinished adventure is heavily padded with factual material taken from accounts of the explo-rations of JOHN JACOB ASTOR, CAPTAINS MERI
-WETHER LEWIS and WILLIAM CLARK, and CAPTAIN
BENJAMIN BONNEVILLE, as well as with details regarding the weather and geography of the little explored regions. Set in 1792 and presented as a journal to aid in its acceptance as factual, this fic-tional work seeks to tell the story of the first cross-ing of the Rocky Mountains.
Poe’s hero is Julius Rodman, an English adven-turer who braves the dangers of the wilderness with a party of companions. Rodman’s initial impetus for the adventure is that it will serve as a health cure; he has lost his father and his two sisters to smallpox. He is a melancholy man who seeks “in the bosom of the wilderness, that peace which his peculiar disposition would not suffer him to enjoy among men.”
The Greeley brothers join Rodman on the jour-ney. They are all bold and fine-looking men, as well as “experienced hunters and capital shots,”
but two stand apart. John, the eldest, “was the stoutest of the five and had the reputation of being the strongest man, as well as the best shot in Ken-tucky.” Six feet tall and “of most extraordinary breadth across the shoulders, with large strong-knit limbs,” he is “exceedingly good-tempered.”
Poindexter is as tall as John, “but very gaunt, and of a singularly fierce appearance, but, like his older brother, he was of peaceable demeanor.” The five brothers agree to divide five ways a one-third share of the proceeds of their adventure with Julius Rod-man and Pierre Junot.
Jules, the Canadian, serves as interpreter with the Sioux Indians. When bears attack, he becomes
“frightened out of his senses” and runs away, then leaps over the edge of a precipice. The rest of the party loses sight of him and presumes that he has been killed. The party later finds him “cruelly bruised” but alive, for he had lodged in one of the ravines and made his way down to the river shore.
Pierre Junot is an integral part of the expedi-tion. He is “a man of strange manners and
some-what eccentric turn of mind, but still one of the best-hearted fellows in the world, and certainly as courageous a man as ever drew breath, although of no great bodily strength.” Pierre is of Canadian descent and experienced in excursions for the Fur Company, for which he acted as a voyageur. He was a close acquaintance of James Rodman and “a great favorite” with Jane Rodman, Julius’s younger sister who dies, but Julius believes that “they would have been married had it been God’s will to have spared her.” Pierre becomes vital to the success of the expedition, and Julius depends upon him to hire able men and to acquire appropriate supplies.
Julius and he agree to share equally in the profits, with each taking one-third of the proceeds and the remaining third to be divided by remaining mem-bers of the expedition. Despite their amiable busi-ness relationship, Rodman relates that “there was not the tie of reciprocal thought between us—that strongest of all mortal bonds. His nature, although sensitive, was too volatile, to comprehend all the devotional fervor of my own.”
The party also includes Andrew Thornton, a Virginian who Julius Rodman notes came “of excellent family, belonging to the Thorntons of the northern part of the State.” Readers learn that he has been “rambling around the western coun-try, with no other companion than a large dog.”
Thornton has no goal and has collected no pelts, nor has he any object in view. Instead, he simply enjoys “the gratification of a roving and adven-turous propensity.” He entertains members of the expedition with tall tales, with the real task “to depict them to the hearer in sufficiently distinct colors.”
The expedition also includes Toby, a servant who had been in the Junot family for many years and who “had proved himself to be a faithful negro.” Although he is advanced in years, Junot refuses to leave him behind, for he is able-bod-ied and “still capable of enduring great fatigue.”
Poe’s physical description of Toby shows a rac-ism characteristic of the author’s time: “as ugly an old gentleman as ever spoke—having all the peculiar features of his race; the swollen lips, large white protruding eyes, flat nose, long ears, dou-88 Journal of Julius Rodman, Being an Account of the First Passage across the Rocky Mountains . . .
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ble head, pot-belly, and bow legs.” The Native Americans whom members of Rodman’s expedi-tion meet are “struck with sudden amazement at the sooty appearance of our negro, Toby,” and the members of the expedition appease their curiosity completely by sending him ashore “in naturalibus [unclothed]” so they might examine him more completely. Toby “took the matter as a very good joke” and allows “the inquisitive savages” to satisfy their curiosity, as they do by “spitting upon their fingers and rubbing the skin of the negro to be sure that it was not painted. The wool on the head elicited repeated shouts of applause, and the bandy legs were the subject of unqualified admiration.
A jig dance on the part of our ugly friend brought matters to a climax.”
The group must confront dangerous illnesses, attacks by wild animals, stampeding antelopes, capsized boats, and ferocious Sioux Indians. Poe’s abrupt dismissal from BURTON’S GENTLEMAN’S
MAGAZINE ended his interest in the story, and he made no further attempts to complete the work.
COMMENTARY
The work is heavily reliant upon sources, many of which Poe mentions in the text of the story. Poe reviewed his main source, WASHINGTON IRVING’S
“ASTORIA,” in the January 1837 issue of the SOUTH
-ERN LITERARY MESSENGER, and also included mate-rial found in Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages in 1789 and 1793, published in 1801, and History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, published in 1814.
The realism of the work deceived many read-ers, and many accepted it as being factual. In an ironic twist, Poe’s heavily borrowed tale became part of a government report prepared for the U.S.
Senate in 1840, when details of the geography and geology contained in the work were incor-porated into the official report on the Oregon Territory.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
The unfinished novel was published in six install-ments in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, beginning
with the January 1840 issue and ending with the sixth installment in the June 1840 issue, after the proprietor, WILLIAM BURTON, removed Poe as edi-tor. In response to the dismissal, Poe refused to continue the novel serialization.
CHARACTERS
Greely brothers Frank, John, Meredith, Poin-dexter, and Robert Greely are brothers from Ken-tucky who participate in the exploring adventure.
Hearne, Samuel According to the “journal,”
Hearne conducted an important expedition in the northern portion of America from 1769 to 1772,
“with the object of discovering copper mines.” In doing so, he traversed from the Prince of Wales’s Fort, in Hudson Bay, as far as the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
Jules, the Canadian One of Rodman’s Canadian men who serve as interpreters, and who transacts business for Rodman when they first meet the Sioux Indians.
Junot, M. After Julius Rodman’s sisters and father die, he sells the family plantation “at a complete sacrifice to M. Junot.” The new owner gives his son Pierre Junot $300 and agrees that he join Rodman on the first river expedition.
Junot, Pierre The eldest son of the neighbor who purchases the family plantation from Julius Rodman.
Lauzanne, Jacques A Canadian who accom-panies Rodman on his journey and dies of a snakebite.
Little Snake A Native American chief who befriends the members of Rodman’s expedition and temporarily provides them with safe passage and supplies.
Misquash A member of the Minnetaree tribe and the son of Chief Waukerassah, he joins Julius Rodman as interpreter for the expedition for part of
the journey. He is especially valuable to the party when they confront the Assiniboin tribe, members of which seem to be hostile when they are merely exhibiting curiosity about the white travelers.
Neptune Huge dog that belongs to Andrew Thornton and seems to listen “with profound attention to every word that was said.” He has been trained to react to various points in the anecdotes.
When Thornton would say, “ ‘Nep can swear to the truth of that—can’t you, Nep?’ ” the dog “would roll his eyes up immediately, loll out his monstrous tongue, and wag his great head up and down, as much as to say—‘Oh, it’s every bit as true as the Bible.’ ”
Perrine An agent of the Hudson Bay fur com-pany who accompanies the Rodman expedition for 10 miles with three members of the Ricaree tribe.
He leaves the expedition to return to the village where, as the voyagers learn afterward, “he met with a violent death from the hands of a squaw, to whom he offered some insult.”
Rodman, James E. The person “from whom we obtained the MS., [who] is well known to many readers of this Magazine; and partakes in some degree, of that temperament which embittered the earlier portion of the life of his grandfather, Mr.
Julius Rodman, the writer of the narrative.”
Rodman, Julius An English adventurer who braves the dangers of the wilderness with a party of companions. Rodman initially begins the adventure as a health cure after he loses his father and his two sisters to smallpox. A melancholy man, he seeks “in the bosom of the wilderness, that peace which his peculiar disposition would not suffer him to enjoy among men.”
Thornton, Andrew A Virginian whom the expe-dition picks up in the woods; he joins the explorers
“upon the instant as soon as we mentioned our design.”
Toby He is “a negro belonging to Pierre Junot”
who had been in the Junot family for many years
and who “had proved himself to be a faithful negro.”
Waukerassah, Chief A Minnetaree chief “who behaved with much civility, and was of service to us in many respects.” He directs his son Misquash to accompany the expedition and to serve as an interpreter.
Wormley, Alexander The sixth man that the expedition enlists from the return boat and “a good recruit.” A Virginian who once fancied himself a preacher, he had spent some time “going about the country with a long beard and hair, and in his bare feet, haranguing every one he met.” When Julius Rodman meets him, Wormley has turned his fervor to finding gold and “upon the subject he was as entirely mad as any man could well be.”
FURTHER READINGS
Pollin, Burton R., ed. The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe: (Vol. 1—The Imaginary Voyages, including The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, The Unparal-leled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall and The Journal of Julius Rodman). Boston: Twayne, 1981.
Teunissen, John J., and Evelyn J. Hinz. “Poe’s ‘Journal of Julius Rodman’ as Parody.” Nineteenth Century Fiction 27 (1972): 317–338.