[Redactor's note: This is volume 4 of the five volume "Raven Edition" of the Works of Poe. The only figure is that of the Chess automaton in Maelzel's Chess Player. There are several greek words.]

THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

IN FIVE VOLUMES

VOLUME FOUR

Contents

The Devil in the Belfry Lionizing X-ing a Paragrab Metzengerstein The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. How to Write a Blackwood article A Predicament Mystification Diddling The Angel of the Odd Mellonia Tauta The Duc de l'Omlette The Oblong Box Loss of Breath The Man That Was Used Up The Business Man The Landscape Garden Maelzel's Chess-Player The Power of Words The Colloquy of Monas and Una The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion Shadow.--A Parable

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THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY

What o'clock is it? -- _Old Saying_.

EVERYBODY knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the world is -- or, alas, was -- the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as it lies some distance from any of the main roads, being in a somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps very few of my readers who have ever paid it a visit. For the benefit of those who have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability, with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious examination into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which should ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.

By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am enabled to say, positively, that the borough of Vondervotteimittiss has existed, from its origin, in precisely the same condition which it at present preserves. Of the date of this origin, however, I grieve that I can only speak with that species of indefinite definiteness which mathematicians are, at times, forced to put up with in certain algebraic formulae. The date, I may thus say, in regard to the remoteness of its antiquity, cannot be less than any assignable quantity whatsoever.

Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I confess myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude of opinions upon this delicate point- some acute, some learned, some sufficiently the reverse -- I am able to select nothing which ought to be considered satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of Grogswigg- nearly coincident with that of Kroutaplenttey -- is to be cautiously preferred. -- It runs: -- "Vondervotteimittis -- Vonder, lege Donder -- Votteimittis, quasi und Bleitziz- Bleitziz obsol: -- pro Blitzen." This derivative, to say the truth, is still countenanced by some traces of the electric fluid evident on the summit of the st...

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