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About The Man of the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Man of the Crowd" is a story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London. Plot Summary: The story is introduced with the epigraph "Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul" — a quote taken from The Characters of Man by Jean de La Bruyère. It translates to This great misfortune, of not being able to be alone. This same quote is used in Poe's earliest tale, "Metzengerstein". After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop in London. Fascinated by the crowd outside the window, he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around". He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees. As evening falls, the narrator focuses on "a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age", whose face has a peculiar idiosyncrasy, and whose body "was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble" wearing filthy, ragged clothes of a "beautiful texture". The narrator dashes out of the coffee shop to follow the man from afar. The man leads the narrator through bazaars and shops, buying nothing, and into a poorer part of the city, then back into "the heart of the mighty London". This chase lasts through the evening and into the next day. Finally, exhausted, the narrator stands in front of the man, who still does not notice him. The narrator concludes the man is "the type and genius of deep crime" due to his inscrutability and inability to leave the crowds of London.
Font adjustments & biography included
Unabridged (100% Original content)
Illustrated
About The Man of the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Man of the Crowd" is a story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London. Plot Summary: The story is introduced with the epigraph "Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul" — a quote taken from The Characters of Man by Jean de La Bruyère. It translates to This great misfortune, of not being able to be alone. This same quote is used in Poe's earliest tale, "Metzengerstein". After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop in London. Fascinated by the crowd outside the window, he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around". He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees. As evening falls, the narrator focuses on "a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age", whose face has a peculiar idiosyncrasy, and whose body "was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble" wearing filthy, ragged clothes of a "beautiful texture". The narrator dashes out of the coffee shop to follow the man from afar. The man leads the narrator through bazaars and shops, buying nothing, and into a poorer part of the city, then back into "the heart of the mighty London". This chase lasts through the evening and into the next day. Finally, exhausted, the narrator stands in front of the man, who still does not notice him. The narrator concludes the man is "the type and genius of deep crime" due to his inscrutability and inability to leave the crowds of London.
170 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1840
35 people are currently reading
1311 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,881 books28.6k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 217 reviews
September 20, 2021
A nameless narrator sits outside a coffee house in London observing the crowds, when he notices a decrepit old man, and feels compelled to follow him. He observes him entering shops and bazaars but buying nothing. They end up in the poorest part of the city, and then back again to the main thoroughfare. This goes on throughout that day and into the next, but will his curiosity be satisfied?
June 26, 2017
Published in 1845, The Man of the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe is a fascinating tale exploring, among other topics, the various ways we can be present in the world and experience the people and life around us.
For such nineteenth century thinkers as Arthur Schopenhauer aesthetic experience is a way to lift us above our everyday concerns, material desires and emotional sufferings to a realm of intellectual contemplation that is most pleasant and freeing. This is, in fact, the narrator’s mindset for the first half of the story when he sits in a coffeehouse in a happy mood, free of boredom, with clear-headedness and a sense of exhilaration so that “Merely to breathe was enjoyable.” He has been feeling calm and keenly interested in his cigar, his paper and the people in the coffeehouse for some time when he turns his attention to the coffeehouse window and the mass of humanity pounding the pavement outside.
Listening to his account, it’s as if he is a spectator sitting in his box at the theater, watching the play of everyday urban life where the actors are men and women from London’s social classes and cultural strata, top to bottom. The narrator categorizes and describes in colorful detail the appearance of decent business-types, haggard clerks, pick-pockets, gamblers, dandies, military men, peddlers, beggars, invalids, young girls, the elderly, drunkards, porters, coal-heavers, organ-grinders, laborers and monkey-exhibiters.
Then, when night descends and the gas-lights turn on, as if in answer to the shifting light, the narrator shifts his focus from overall physical appearances and clothing to an examination of individual faces. We read, “Although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted before the window, prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of long years.”
Perhaps his "peculiar mental state" is heightened intuition from his prolonged aesthetic experience, but, whatever it is, as he looks out the coffeehouse window, the narrator thinks he can read an individual’s life history by momentarily viewing his or her face.
Then, something unexpected happens: the narrator sees an old man between sixty-five and seventy, an old man who’s face is so arresting and absorbing and idiosyncratic, the narrator feels compelled to leave his seat at the window and follow him down the street. Will he learn more about this old man with a face that prompts ideas of such things as vast mental power, of triumph, of blood-thirstiness, of excessive terror?
The narrator is certainly willing to sacrifice his calm, happy mood and enjoyable breathing to find out. We read, “I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated. Then came a craving desire to keep the man in view – to know more of him. Hurriedly putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my way into the street.” So, it’s bye, bye happy, relaxed contemplation; hello, craving desire and psychological fascination.
And here we follow the narrator as he experiences an entirely different way of being in the world, a totally different way to experience life and observe people. The mindset he adopts is intriguing, mainly the attitude of a private detective trailing a suspect with a tincture of flâneur, that is, an explorer and connoisseur of the street.
The narrator’s excitement and inquisitiveness is heightened; he is willing to race through London streets for hours, even the dangerous and dilapidated East End and even in the rain. Poe writes, “The rain fell fast; the air grew cold. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much trouble in pursuit.”
The narrator relays his many observations and judgments about the old man of the crowd as he follows his path for hours and hours, until the rising of the sun the next day. Now, that’s headstrong fascination! Ultimately, the narrator doesn’t like what he discovers and concludes for such as the old man of the crowd, he can learn no more.
What I personally find fascinating is Poe’s penetrating insight that our intention and focus and mindset radically alters our perception; how, when we shift from calm philosophical to aroused and desirous, we are, in a very real sense, encountering a different world. What an altered experience the narrator of this tale would have had if, after putting on his hat and coat and running from the coffeehouse, he couldn’t locate the old man. What a dissimilar world he would have seen if he reverted to his calm, aesthetic contemplation, randomly and casually strolling London’s streets.
February 18, 2022
Poe hace una descripción detallada del tipo de personas que podías encontrarte en la sociedad londinense de la época. No obstante, algo le resultó interesante al protagonista. Algo que le llevó a una persecución durante toda la noche.
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Poe gives a detailed description of the kind of people you could find in London society at the time. However, something struck the protagonist as interesting. Something that led to an all-night chase.
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Poe gives a detailed description of the kind of people you could find in London society at the time. However, something struck the protagonist as interesting. Something that led to an all-night chase.
February 22, 2016
Have you ever stopped, for just a moment, and observed the crowd you are part of but not fully a member of? We’re all isolated from each other when in a mass crowd of people; there’s not really any connectedness with other people. By observation this idea is felt more strongly; thus, the narrator of this tale carries with him a depth of separation and loneliness. Well, until he finds an unusual face amongst the crowd of supposed pretenders and hypocrites.
So, he follows the face and, you guessed it, observes some more. The man of the crowd exhibits some unusual behaviour but none other than the narrator seems to notice him. He is lost in the busy city of London and his identity is forever obscured; he is just another irrelevant person in a tide of faces. No one knows him, no one cares about him. His oddness is as unnoticeable as everyone else’s. In this, he has the perfect cover for he is a thief that can steal and vanish into the crowd with complete ease. He becomes incognito with no trace of his identity left. Well, except for our perceptive narrator’s observation of him and the other secrets of the crowd.
“There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes — die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.”
This is an interesting idea. I think this story is really relevant in today’s ever rising population and increasing modernisation. For me, this story questions individuality. If a person can be lost in a sea of people, then are we all the same? Are we all a member of Poe’s metaphorical crowd? I think it’s also suggestive of what horrors may lurk within the crowd, and how easily it can become hidden. Through this story I think Poe’s is suggesting that amongst the depths of people can come easily disguisable, and unnoticeable, evil. It’s a great story.
So, he follows the face and, you guessed it, observes some more. The man of the crowd exhibits some unusual behaviour but none other than the narrator seems to notice him. He is lost in the busy city of London and his identity is forever obscured; he is just another irrelevant person in a tide of faces. No one knows him, no one cares about him. His oddness is as unnoticeable as everyone else’s. In this, he has the perfect cover for he is a thief that can steal and vanish into the crowd with complete ease. He becomes incognito with no trace of his identity left. Well, except for our perceptive narrator’s observation of him and the other secrets of the crowd.
“There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes — die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.”
This is an interesting idea. I think this story is really relevant in today’s ever rising population and increasing modernisation. For me, this story questions individuality. If a person can be lost in a sea of people, then are we all the same? Are we all a member of Poe’s metaphorical crowd? I think it’s also suggestive of what horrors may lurk within the crowd, and how easily it can become hidden. Through this story I think Poe’s is suggesting that amongst the depths of people can come easily disguisable, and unnoticeable, evil. It’s a great story.
July 29, 2019
A first person narrator observes people passing by the window of a coffe house. He does a brilliant classification of characters and is especially fascinated by an old haunted man who aimlessly strolls through the street, always looking for people to be with. What's the reason for this strange behaviour? In this well plotted and intriguing story Poe will reveal his secret. Recommended!
November 23, 2018
I read this in 2010, gave it three stars, and I have no idea why, because I can't remember a damn thing about it.
Let's see if Wiki can cast some light on it...
"The Man of the Crowd" is...about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London...
After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop...he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around". He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees...the narrator focuses on "a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age", whose face has a peculiar idiosyncrasy...
Wow, no wonder I'm having trouble remembering the specifics of this one, everything and everyone is nameless! It's easy to forget people and things when your brain doesn't categorize them with some kind of title, name, or at least a brief-yet-memorable definition.
The Man of the Crowd reminds me of something a college professor once told me: 99 out of 100 people you'll meet will be interesting is someway, while that 100th person will be interesting because he/she will be so unnaturally boring as to make him/her interesting.
So, our unnamed narrator spots the world's least interesting man and is so drawn to him as to spend the entire evening and night following the man around to discover what he's about. The plot thickens the more nothing happens. The very fact that this man wonders without purpose, seems to have no home or place to go, this limbo state is enough to condemn the man in the eyes of his pursuer. Clearly, thinks the narrator, this man is guilty of something!
I have a vivid imagination, so this sort of scenario actually makes sense to me. Poe had a pretty dang vivid imagination, too...in fact his probably ranks up there on the top "most vivid" list. I think that kind of mind, the curious one that can make up crazy shit where others see normality, is prevalent in writers especially while their industriously working away at their craft. So while this might sound nuts I'm going to say it anyway, The Man of the Crowd is the kind of story that could only be written by a writer.
Let's see if Wiki can cast some light on it...
"The Man of the Crowd" is...about a nameless narrator following a man through a crowded London...
After an unnamed illness, the unnamed narrator sits in an unnamed coffee shop...he considers how isolated people think they are, despite "the very denseness of the company around". He takes time to categorize the different types of people he sees...the narrator focuses on "a decrepit old man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age", whose face has a peculiar idiosyncrasy...
Wow, no wonder I'm having trouble remembering the specifics of this one, everything and everyone is nameless! It's easy to forget people and things when your brain doesn't categorize them with some kind of title, name, or at least a brief-yet-memorable definition.
The Man of the Crowd reminds me of something a college professor once told me: 99 out of 100 people you'll meet will be interesting is someway, while that 100th person will be interesting because he/she will be so unnaturally boring as to make him/her interesting.
So, our unnamed narrator spots the world's least interesting man and is so drawn to him as to spend the entire evening and night following the man around to discover what he's about. The plot thickens the more nothing happens. The very fact that this man wonders without purpose, seems to have no home or place to go, this limbo state is enough to condemn the man in the eyes of his pursuer. Clearly, thinks the narrator, this man is guilty of something!
I have a vivid imagination, so this sort of scenario actually makes sense to me. Poe had a pretty dang vivid imagination, too...in fact his probably ranks up there on the top "most vivid" list. I think that kind of mind, the curious one that can make up crazy shit where others see normality, is prevalent in writers especially while their industriously working away at their craft. So while this might sound nuts I'm going to say it anyway, The Man of the Crowd is the kind of story that could only be written by a writer.
November 9, 2021
I feel that I somehow completely missed the entire point of this story. It was the Poe short story version of sitting on a bench and people watching, but that’s about as far as it went.
May 30, 2020
An odd short story that was selected by my classics group. A man follows another who has piqued his interest while crowd watching one day in London. He follows the old man for two days observing changes in demeanor, gait, & body morphology (for lack of a better description). Who is this man? Is he a criminal? Afflicted with dementia? Lonely? That is for the reader to decide.
September 2, 2025
4 Everyman Stars
"Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave."
POV is that of a recently ill and unnamed gentleman reposed at a window seat in the coffee house of a fine London Hotel. Reading the newpaper, reflecting on life, and people-watching:
"I was thus occupied with scrutinizing the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepid old man, sme sixty five or seventy years of age) --a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression."
Our appetent convalescent covertly proceeds to pursue the aberrant old man through the crowded streets...
I'm a sucker for Poe's moody prose and enjoyed this eccentric exploration of what appears to be the theme of hidden guilt, and the conjecture that one man can never really know another yet, by virtue of a common humanity, one man is everyman and vise versa.
"Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave."
POV is that of a recently ill and unnamed gentleman reposed at a window seat in the coffee house of a fine London Hotel. Reading the newpaper, reflecting on life, and people-watching:
"I was thus occupied with scrutinizing the mob, when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepid old man, sme sixty five or seventy years of age) --a countenance which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression."
Our appetent convalescent covertly proceeds to pursue the aberrant old man through the crowded streets...
I'm a sucker for Poe's moody prose and enjoyed this eccentric exploration of what appears to be the theme of hidden guilt, and the conjecture that one man can never really know another yet, by virtue of a common humanity, one man is everyman and vise versa.
December 8, 2021
Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes – die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave.
December 29, 2021
Where Does the Crowd Stop, Where the Man Start?
An unnamed man, having recently recovered from an illness and now experiencing the freshness and astuteness of whatever sensation reaches him, is sitting in a London coffee-house and watching the people passing by the front window. With the wit and keen observation that was displayed by Dickens in his Sketches by Boz, our narrator swiftly categorizes the passers-by according to their clothes, posture, conduct or to particular features into professions and social classes, ranging them from top to bottom of the social scales, and while he does this, he is taking more and more pleasure in his powers of observation, eventually presuming to being able to tell the entire history of an individual just by looking into their face. All of a sudden, however, his attention is caught by an old man in his late sixties or early seventies, a man with an unsettling facial expression that our narrator is at a loss to pigeon-hole, and he quickly decides to follow this man in order to find out more about him. This takes him on an odyssey throughout the whole of London, at the heels of this man who seems to be seeking human crowds in order to lose himself in them. Our narrator pursues this man for nearly 24 hours before he suddenly recoils in disgust, saying,
The opening words of The Man of the Crowd, which was published in 1840, tell of men lying on their deathbeds in dark despair and carrying with them gruesome mysteries that only death can unburden them of as they are too gruesome to impart to anyone, and in this context, it makes sense to regard the mysterious Man of the Crowd as someone who is haunted by a heinous crime he committed and therefore shuns solitude as the icy mirror he would have to look at himself in. Like Melmoth or the Flying Dutchman, this mysterious old man seems to feel compelled to restlessness because of some misdeed he committed, but what separates him from the archetypal figures of those two – and we can also include the figure of Ahasver –, is that he needs to hide in the crowd instead of in deserts of sand or waters as in a place that may offer distraction, noise and motion without adding a sense of communion.
And yet, this tale could not be half as fascinating as it is if the mystery only lied in a murder or another atrocious crime committed by the old man. There has to be something more to it, something that still speaks to the present-day reader whose life is shaped by the conditions of mass society, mass consumption and mass media, by the psychology of crowds. If we take a closer look at the old man, through the eyes of the narrator, we will find that his facial expression cannot be read and that it is even suggestive of mutually contradicting moods. Likewise, his clothes cannot be clearly categorized as they are dirty and shabby and yet of a fine texture. He also seems to be familiar with the whole of London, at the time the story was written the most populous city in the world, from the more refined and fashionable places down to the meanest slums. In a way, the old man is the embodiment of the crowds he seeks out – mirroring all the characteristics through which the narrator was able to identify the passers-by at his window when he started his idle observations. If we take crowds as groups of people that are linked only by happenstance, by their being in one place at a particular moment in time and not having anything else in common, [1] this makes sense, and it also shows their potential danger which lies in their anonymity and the corresponding lack of responsibility demanded of the crowd’s individual members. In this context, and bearing in mind what the pioneer of exploring the psychology of masses, Gustave Le Bon, wrote, we might even surmise that the old man may not have committed any particular crime at all but that his obsession with dissolving in the crowd may lead him into partaking in any crime or inhuman behaviour the mass is going to indulge in. In that respect, the old man is the Man of the Crowd, walking where everyone else walks, talking what everyone else talks and balking at nothing everyone else seems to be doing.
Ironically, there are at least two Men of the Crowd in this story, in that our narrator himself seems to be quite a solitary man, a man without a family and any clear-cut social obligations because after all, he is able to follow, on the spur of the moment, another person that strikes his fancy for hours and hours, without anyone wondering about his whereabouts and occupation. Therefore, next time, when you indulge in a bath in the crowd, you may want to ask yourself where you end and where it starts and try to push the border in your own favour.
[1] A more modern conception of the terms “crowd” or “mass” may make the actual physical congregation in one particular place superfluous, replacing it with the aspect of social media and their power to convince individuals, who are living in a world with fewer and fewer traditions and common values, that they are not alone but can be part of a greater community by just professing to the same ideas and moral tenets, when in fact, there is no deeper link between these individuals. Paradoxically, the more we are keeping to ourselves at home, be it voluntarily or because we are told to do so for our own benefit, the more we tend to be people of the crowd when we watch the programmes everyone else watches or follow our search engine with implicit trust.
An unnamed man, having recently recovered from an illness and now experiencing the freshness and astuteness of whatever sensation reaches him, is sitting in a London coffee-house and watching the people passing by the front window. With the wit and keen observation that was displayed by Dickens in his Sketches by Boz, our narrator swiftly categorizes the passers-by according to their clothes, posture, conduct or to particular features into professions and social classes, ranging them from top to bottom of the social scales, and while he does this, he is taking more and more pleasure in his powers of observation, eventually presuming to being able to tell the entire history of an individual just by looking into their face. All of a sudden, however, his attention is caught by an old man in his late sixties or early seventies, a man with an unsettling facial expression that our narrator is at a loss to pigeon-hole, and he quickly decides to follow this man in order to find out more about him. This takes him on an odyssey throughout the whole of London, at the heels of this man who seems to be seeking human crowds in order to lose himself in them. Our narrator pursues this man for nearly 24 hours before he suddenly recoils in disgust, saying,
”’The old man […] is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. […]’”
The opening words of The Man of the Crowd, which was published in 1840, tell of men lying on their deathbeds in dark despair and carrying with them gruesome mysteries that only death can unburden them of as they are too gruesome to impart to anyone, and in this context, it makes sense to regard the mysterious Man of the Crowd as someone who is haunted by a heinous crime he committed and therefore shuns solitude as the icy mirror he would have to look at himself in. Like Melmoth or the Flying Dutchman, this mysterious old man seems to feel compelled to restlessness because of some misdeed he committed, but what separates him from the archetypal figures of those two – and we can also include the figure of Ahasver –, is that he needs to hide in the crowd instead of in deserts of sand or waters as in a place that may offer distraction, noise and motion without adding a sense of communion.
And yet, this tale could not be half as fascinating as it is if the mystery only lied in a murder or another atrocious crime committed by the old man. There has to be something more to it, something that still speaks to the present-day reader whose life is shaped by the conditions of mass society, mass consumption and mass media, by the psychology of crowds. If we take a closer look at the old man, through the eyes of the narrator, we will find that his facial expression cannot be read and that it is even suggestive of mutually contradicting moods. Likewise, his clothes cannot be clearly categorized as they are dirty and shabby and yet of a fine texture. He also seems to be familiar with the whole of London, at the time the story was written the most populous city in the world, from the more refined and fashionable places down to the meanest slums. In a way, the old man is the embodiment of the crowds he seeks out – mirroring all the characteristics through which the narrator was able to identify the passers-by at his window when he started his idle observations. If we take crowds as groups of people that are linked only by happenstance, by their being in one place at a particular moment in time and not having anything else in common, [1] this makes sense, and it also shows their potential danger which lies in their anonymity and the corresponding lack of responsibility demanded of the crowd’s individual members. In this context, and bearing in mind what the pioneer of exploring the psychology of masses, Gustave Le Bon, wrote, we might even surmise that the old man may not have committed any particular crime at all but that his obsession with dissolving in the crowd may lead him into partaking in any crime or inhuman behaviour the mass is going to indulge in. In that respect, the old man is the Man of the Crowd, walking where everyone else walks, talking what everyone else talks and balking at nothing everyone else seems to be doing.
Ironically, there are at least two Men of the Crowd in this story, in that our narrator himself seems to be quite a solitary man, a man without a family and any clear-cut social obligations because after all, he is able to follow, on the spur of the moment, another person that strikes his fancy for hours and hours, without anyone wondering about his whereabouts and occupation. Therefore, next time, when you indulge in a bath in the crowd, you may want to ask yourself where you end and where it starts and try to push the border in your own favour.
[1] A more modern conception of the terms “crowd” or “mass” may make the actual physical congregation in one particular place superfluous, replacing it with the aspect of social media and their power to convince individuals, who are living in a world with fewer and fewer traditions and common values, that they are not alone but can be part of a greater community by just professing to the same ideas and moral tenets, when in fact, there is no deeper link between these individuals. Paradoxically, the more we are keeping to ourselves at home, be it voluntarily or because we are told to do so for our own benefit, the more we tend to be people of the crowd when we watch the programmes everyone else watches or follow our search engine with implicit trust.
September 26, 2015
¿Se puede experimentar la vorágine de una ciudad como Londres a través de los ojos de alguien que simplemente está sentado en un café? ¿Contemplar a los diferentes transeúntes, los empujones cotidianos, la marcha incesante, la sensación de estar en un grupo pero sin perder la individualidad? O mejor aún: ¿qué se sentiría al divisar un rostro demoníaco que se vuelve tan sospechoso que induce al protagonista/ narrador a salir del café e iniciar una persecución?
Poe logra su objetivo. Este cuento es un paseo por el corazón y los bordes de una ciudad. La narración parece un laberinto sin salida que traza líneas (que parecen que no van a ninguna parte) y hasta yo terminé exhausta en ese recorrido. Pero valió la pena cada página, incluso aunque a uno le impresione o decepcione el final. Uno de mis relatos favoritos de Poe, por lo menos hasta el momento.
Poe logra su objetivo. Este cuento es un paseo por el corazón y los bordes de una ciudad. La narración parece un laberinto sin salida que traza líneas (que parecen que no van a ninguna parte) y hasta yo terminé exhausta en ese recorrido. Pero valió la pena cada página, incluso aunque a uno le impresione o decepcione el final. Uno de mis relatos favoritos de Poe, por lo menos hasta el momento.
November 6, 2021
This might have been the inspiration for one of Ray Bradbury’s stories.
July 13, 2012
A Man of the Crowd is the first short story in which the concept of the flaneur was used. It first appeared in a poem by Charles Baudelaire and if translated from French is described as a stroller, idler, walker. In this short storw we have two flaneurs. The first one is the narrator who watches through the window of a hotel. He treats the people who pass for his own pleasure. He divides the crowd into people who have their characteristics. He is a voyeur; taking extreme pleasure in reading people from their clothes, way of walking, posture. The narrator is actively gazing from his hotel D* situated in London adn then becomes a part of the crowd experiencing it. He follows, as he says himself, Satan – an extremely intelligent yet gruesome person who is 65-75 years old. People in the crowd are secluded by a thick mist and gass lamps which is typical of the 19th century Victorian London similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's one . But after following him for hours he realizes that the man has no direct goal. He leads him through London showing him its duality. The rich, secure, clean West side and the East side which is in decrepitude and decay, crowded by corrupted people. The narrator finally learns that the man will be forever a part of the crowd and never apart from it. Even if he had followed him for days he would never have read anything from his face. He is anonymous, and unknown face among a stream of individuals. This short story was extremely interesting to me.
October 9, 2020
Tal vez, junto con "El demonio de la perversidad", este sea unos de los cuentos de mayor profundidad e inspección psicológica que hayan salido de la pluma de Edgar Allan Poe.
Es también una parábola sobre la soledad y sobre la posición del individuo dentro de la sociedad y acerca de cómo interactúa con ella.
Y por supuesto trata acerca de una obsesión, una de las tantas que Poe transformaba en historias atrayentes para el lector.
Es también una parábola sobre la soledad y sobre la posición del individuo dentro de la sociedad y acerca de cómo interactúa con ella.
Y por supuesto trata acerca de una obsesión, una de las tantas que Poe transformaba en historias atrayentes para el lector.
August 23, 2023
4 Stars. An interesting little piece. "The Man of the Crowd" first came out in 'Atkinson's Casket' and 'Burton's Gentleman's Magazine' in 1840. More than 180 years ago. Poe, who spent much of his youth in England, describes through an unnamed narrator the bedlam of the crowded streets of London. Almost as a detective would. He sorts out categories of people in the throng, questionable at best. It is impossible to see these many observations as originating in his youth; Poe was well-read and his readings of authors such as Dickens may have been the inspiration. I have three issues. Although he does less of it here, he still indulges in the use of arcane words and foreign language quotations. He's showing off his erudition. And then, among his categorizations of businessmen, junior and senior clerks, pick pockets, street beggars, etc., is one on "Jew peddlers." Not damning, but it jumps out at you. Lastly, the narrator follows an elderly man though shops and back alleys, and ascribes definitive characterizations with too little information. As he does with the groups. Yet, I come back to it being Poe. He's so fascinating. (August 2023)
April 17, 2019
"The Man of the Crowd" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. Although it is not among some of his more well-known, it is still quite enjoyable.
An unnamed man in an unnamed cafe in London sits and watches people pass by. As they do, the unnamed man begins to put them all in categories. When he stumbles upon an old man he can't quite classify, he follows him throughout the market, trying to decide what "box" to categorize the man.
The unnamed man is not as fascinating as the old man he follows. I guess that is the purpose of the story, and why I love Poe so much.
Although not Poe's usual dark, gothic style, the story is richly written. This is nothing crazy or scary about this particular story, but that's why makes Poe so awesome. Although the names and places are very vague, the descriptions of the setting are amazing. If you enjoy Poe, you will not be disappointed.
I highly recommend this story for the American lit fan, Poe fan, or someone looking to read something a little different.
An unnamed man in an unnamed cafe in London sits and watches people pass by. As they do, the unnamed man begins to put them all in categories. When he stumbles upon an old man he can't quite classify, he follows him throughout the market, trying to decide what "box" to categorize the man.
The unnamed man is not as fascinating as the old man he follows. I guess that is the purpose of the story, and why I love Poe so much.
Although not Poe's usual dark, gothic style, the story is richly written. This is nothing crazy or scary about this particular story, but that's why makes Poe so awesome. Although the names and places are very vague, the descriptions of the setting are amazing. If you enjoy Poe, you will not be disappointed.
I highly recommend this story for the American lit fan, Poe fan, or someone looking to read something a little different.
August 25, 2015
I loved it.
It is a short story and it is totally Edgar Allan Poe. I loved it. I was always expecting something to happen and thеn... there was the end. Great message.
It is a short story and it is totally Edgar Allan Poe. I loved it. I was always expecting something to happen and thеn... there was the end. Great message.
September 7, 2017
To read in tandem with Baudelaire's prose poems and the movie "Following", by Cristopher Nolan.
November 17, 2018
I’m slowly working my way through Edgar Allan Poe’s work, something which will take me quite some time, and of those I have read thus far The Man of the Crowd is my least favourite.
I know many people enjoy this one, approach it as having a much deeper meaning that wows them. Whilst I can see that deeper meaning within the story, I wasn’t invested enough to care. I kept expecting something more to happen, something chilling to occur, only to finish this one feeling as though nothing happened.
It could have simply been a reflection of my mood at the time of reading, though.
I know many people enjoy this one, approach it as having a much deeper meaning that wows them. Whilst I can see that deeper meaning within the story, I wasn’t invested enough to care. I kept expecting something more to happen, something chilling to occur, only to finish this one feeling as though nothing happened.
It could have simply been a reflection of my mood at the time of reading, though.
November 30, 2017
I enjoyed the ending. What a classic?
November 28, 2023
Really interesting way to describe people watching. I was quite invested in the outcome.
October 13, 2020
¿Quién necesita cámaras de seguridad cuando se tiene a este sugeto?
El protagonista describe a todos a los que ve con lujo de detalle en la multitud, incluso los clasifica y es así como ve a un hombre que destaca entre todos y comienza a seguirlo.
Francamente nuestro protagonista es un acosador que busca saciar su curiosidad siguiendo a este anciano extraño.
Creo que lo que más destaca del cuento son sus descripciones, también se podría analizar de varias formas y encontrar varios mensajes. Podría ser que hay misterios que no pueden ser resueltos como el anciano, podría ser lo similares que somos cuando caminamos en una multitud y que en si no somos especiales, también está lo sencillo que es ser espiado y no darnos cuenta por lo inmersos que estamos en nosotros mismos y así las hay más.
Por último les cuento mis teorías para explicar el comportamiento tan extraño del hombre en la multitud. 1) Simplemente era un hombre bajo el efecto de alguna droga potente.
2) El hombre tenía alguna enfermedad como la psicosis que le hacía ver alucinaciones.
El protagonista describe a todos a los que ve con lujo de detalle en la multitud, incluso los clasifica y es así como ve a un hombre que destaca entre todos y comienza a seguirlo.
Francamente nuestro protagonista es un acosador que busca saciar su curiosidad siguiendo a este anciano extraño.
Creo que lo que más destaca del cuento son sus descripciones, también se podría analizar de varias formas y encontrar varios mensajes. Podría ser que hay misterios que no pueden ser resueltos como el anciano, podría ser lo similares que somos cuando caminamos en una multitud y que en si no somos especiales, también está lo sencillo que es ser espiado y no darnos cuenta por lo inmersos que estamos en nosotros mismos y así las hay más.
Por último les cuento mis teorías para explicar el comportamiento tan extraño del hombre en la multitud. 1) Simplemente era un hombre bajo el efecto de alguna droga potente.
2) El hombre tenía alguna enfermedad como la psicosis que le hacía ver alucinaciones.
June 11, 2016
Това кратко произведение много прилича на философско есе, отнасящо се до темата... "човекът от тълпата", както е и озаглавен въпросния разказ. Хареса ми как е поднесен. В началото очакваш да се случи нещо друго, но после постепенно осъзнаваш смисъла на странното държане на странния старец. Вечно търсещ да се скрие сред другите.
April 10, 2017
Passer bra til påske!
December 28, 2018
Relato con una premisa interesante con la que Poe demuestra su gran voz narrando. Me ha gustado bastante.
November 15, 2020
Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul. [This great misfortune of not being able to be alone]
-La Bruyère. Poe's opening quote
While reading this tale the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney's Eleanor Rigby for some reason kept flashing through my mind as the narrator gazed upon the people passing in front of his cafe's grimy window. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndDVz...
Ah, look at all the lonely people
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
"This tale is one of conscience, featuring a stranger who seems doomed to wander forever in order to make up for some unnamed crime. It contains London scenes that Poe probably recollected from his time spent there as a young boy with John Allan and his family. The story is unusual among Poe's work because none of the characters is given a name, nor does Poe reveal the crime committed by the nameless narrator that is responsible for his aimless wanderings. Critics have also viewed the story as exceedingly modern in its themes of the isolation of the artist and the alienation of the individual in an urban environment. . . . The reader is never told why the narrator is haunted by the old man, but the story implies that the two are each sides of the same person and that the old man, thus, represents a secret side of the narrator. A similar situation appears in William Wilson, but that story contains a confrontation that never occurs in the current story despite the best efforts of the narrator. As a result, this is more of a story of noncommunication and unresolvable loneliness, for after overtaking the man of the crowd, the narrator gazes at him steadfastly in the face, 'He noticed me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I ceasing to follow, remained absorbed in contemplation.' " Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (147-148)
I found another viewpoint from a psychoanalytical angle also interesting.
Marie Bonaparte states in her book how other myths reflect Poe's tale. "In the myths which man's age-old mind has engendered, we find other doers of crimes condemned to eternal wanderings. (421) The myths that she mentions parallel Poe's The Man of the Crowd are Cain when God doomed him to be a fugitive and wanderer after killing his brother, as well as, the myths of the "Wandering Jew," "The Flying Dutchman," and the "Wild Huntsman." "The Man of the Crowd is an old rake (vieux marcheur) [old walker] of the same sort. For a whole night and a day and, until 'the shades of the second evening' draw on and his pursuer, 'wearied unto death', gives up the chase, he wanders and doubtless continue[s] to wander without let or pause. What he pursues is suggested, to our mind, by a circumstance in Poe's description of the crowd, for though he devotes only half a page to describing the women in the streets, they are almost all prostitutes. And though it is mostly such women who frequent the streets at night this emphasis, nevertheless, underlies the sex element in the old man's quest." (424-425) Bonaparte, Marie Princess (1949). Chapter XXXV The Man of a Crowd. The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation (pp. 413-426). London : Imago Publishing Company.
For me this was a very poignant story and brought out the fact that even in a crowd one can feel intensely alone.
-La Bruyère. Poe's opening quote
While reading this tale the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney's Eleanor Rigby for some reason kept flashing through my mind as the narrator gazed upon the people passing in front of his cafe's grimy window. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndDVz...
Ah, look at all the lonely people
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
"This tale is one of conscience, featuring a stranger who seems doomed to wander forever in order to make up for some unnamed crime. It contains London scenes that Poe probably recollected from his time spent there as a young boy with John Allan and his family. The story is unusual among Poe's work because none of the characters is given a name, nor does Poe reveal the crime committed by the nameless narrator that is responsible for his aimless wanderings. Critics have also viewed the story as exceedingly modern in its themes of the isolation of the artist and the alienation of the individual in an urban environment. . . . The reader is never told why the narrator is haunted by the old man, but the story implies that the two are each sides of the same person and that the old man, thus, represents a secret side of the narrator. A similar situation appears in William Wilson, but that story contains a confrontation that never occurs in the current story despite the best efforts of the narrator. As a result, this is more of a story of noncommunication and unresolvable loneliness, for after overtaking the man of the crowd, the narrator gazes at him steadfastly in the face, 'He noticed me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I ceasing to follow, remained absorbed in contemplation.' " Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (147-148)
I found another viewpoint from a psychoanalytical angle also interesting.
Marie Bonaparte states in her book how other myths reflect Poe's tale. "In the myths which man's age-old mind has engendered, we find other doers of crimes condemned to eternal wanderings. (421) The myths that she mentions parallel Poe's The Man of the Crowd are Cain when God doomed him to be a fugitive and wanderer after killing his brother, as well as, the myths of the "Wandering Jew," "The Flying Dutchman," and the "Wild Huntsman." "The Man of the Crowd is an old rake (vieux marcheur) [old walker] of the same sort. For a whole night and a day and, until 'the shades of the second evening' draw on and his pursuer, 'wearied unto death', gives up the chase, he wanders and doubtless continue[s] to wander without let or pause. What he pursues is suggested, to our mind, by a circumstance in Poe's description of the crowd, for though he devotes only half a page to describing the women in the streets, they are almost all prostitutes. And though it is mostly such women who frequent the streets at night this emphasis, nevertheless, underlies the sex element in the old man's quest." (424-425) Bonaparte, Marie Princess (1949). Chapter XXXV The Man of a Crowd. The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe : a psycho-analytic interpretation (pp. 413-426). London : Imago Publishing Company.
For me this was a very poignant story and brought out the fact that even in a crowd one can feel intensely alone.
October 31, 2025
My foray into Poe's land of confusion continues. I have no idea why this was listed as a horror story in some list I saw ten years ago on the internet but can't find again. Nor do I know what the point of the story was, but I take solace in the fact that the literary intelligentsia doesn't seem to know what to make of it either. Oh, there's plenty of "it might be this" followed by someone else's "it might be that," but I didn't see anyone claiming "No, it's this for deffers."
Dude sees an old guy with a weird expression on his face walking around, and he decides to follow him for over a day. They go all over the damn place, but nothing really happens, and they end up right back where they started from. Dude stares the old man straight in the eye, yet remains unnoticed by him, and he concludes the old man must be some kind of criminal genius.
As with all of Poe's other stories, this is excessively descriptive. It's not an unpleasant read, but I don't get it. Suggested for Poe completists.
***All Poe reviews corralled here.***
Dude sees an old guy with a weird expression on his face walking around, and he decides to follow him for over a day. They go all over the damn place, but nothing really happens, and they end up right back where they started from. Dude stares the old man straight in the eye, yet remains unnoticed by him, and he concludes the old man must be some kind of criminal genius.
As with all of Poe's other stories, this is excessively descriptive. It's not an unpleasant read, but I don't get it. Suggested for Poe completists.
***All Poe reviews corralled here.***
October 14, 2020
Este es el retrato de un acosador. Entiendo que el hombre está en una etapa de su vida en la que si tenía una curiosidad,no iba a permitir quedarse con la inquietud.
May 24, 2021
E.A Poe is one of my fav short-story writer.
"Not everyone can be read".
Curiosity is everywhere, we all are curious just like that old man, we try to hide ourselves in crowd.
"It is our greatest unfortunate that we can't live alone"
"Alone yet never alone".
"Not everyone can be read".
Curiosity is everywhere, we all are curious just like that old man, we try to hide ourselves in crowd.
"It is our greatest unfortunate that we can't live alone"
"Alone yet never alone".
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