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The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
A short story from Edgar Allan Poe. Very short and eerie!
Two people, who have been renamed Eiros and Charmion after death, discuss the manner in which the world ended. Eiros, who died in the recent apocalypse, explains the circumstances to Charmion, who died ten years previously.
A new comet had been detected in the Solar System, and as it approached the Earth, people experienced, in turn, exhilaration, then pain, and then delirium. Was it a loss of nitrogen in the atmosphere that contributed to the catastrophe when the comet nucleus hit the planet?
Two people, who have been renamed Eiros and Charmion after death, discuss the manner in which the world ended. Eiros, who died in the recent apocalypse, explains the circumstances to Charmion, who died ten years previously.
A new comet had been detected in the Solar System, and as it approached the Earth, people experienced, in turn, exhilaration, then pain, and then delirium. Was it a loss of nitrogen in the atmosphere that contributed to the catastrophe when the comet nucleus hit the planet?
8 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 1839
4 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.9k books28k 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 60 reviews
February 3, 2022
Conversación entre dos personas que están muertas sobre la historia de la muerte de una de ellas (Charmion).
Relato corto de tintes apocalípticos sobre la destrucción del planeta Tierra tras el impacto con un asteroide.
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Conversation between two people who are dead about the story of the death of one of them (Charmion).
Apocalyptic short story about the destruction of planet Earth after the impact with an asteroid.
Relato corto de tintes apocalípticos sobre la destrucción del planeta Tierra tras el impacto con un asteroide.
-----------------------------
Conversation between two people who are dead about the story of the death of one of them (Charmion).
Apocalyptic short story about the destruction of planet Earth after the impact with an asteroid.
October 6, 2020
This did not feel necessarily poignant in any way. It felt like ponderous rambling. It really didn't make much sense one way or another.
March 27, 2024
The end of the world as we know it - as told by Edgar Allan Poe - haunting and eerily predictive of countless Si-Fi movies. There is a very detached feel to this book - a kind of overwhelming feeling of dread. Reminded me very much of the Night Gallery episode The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes. A new respect for Poe after reading this.
February 5, 2017
Wow. That was a very different style of storytelling from Poe's normal ways. It was powerful and full of dread.
December 12, 2016
Attn.
BOTTOM’S DREAM
lovers:
Read this prior to pgs 775 ff.
You’ll laugh your arse off!
Read this prior to pgs 775 ff.
You’ll laugh your arse off!
July 7, 2025
3 Uninspired Stars
Not one of my favorite by this beloved author.
Proffered by many reviewers and references as SciFi, I feel this label is a real stretch of the definition.
A brief conversation between a man recently deceased as a result of the fiery demise of our planet and a man who died ten years prior.
Message conveyed: be it in this life, or the afterlife, all we really have is "the now."
This is the July 2025 EAP selection with the dynamic group HORROR OR HEAVEN.
Hope the August 2025 story is more imploring for this long time EAP fan 🧚♀️🙋🏼.
Not one of my favorite by this beloved author.
Proffered by many reviewers and references as SciFi, I feel this label is a real stretch of the definition.
A brief conversation between a man recently deceased as a result of the fiery demise of our planet and a man who died ten years prior.
Message conveyed: be it in this life, or the afterlife, all we really have is "the now."
This is the July 2025 EAP selection with the dynamic group HORROR OR HEAVEN.
Hope the August 2025 story is more imploring for this long time EAP fan 🧚♀️🙋🏼.
June 13, 2021
This fits into the realm of “What if”.
March 3, 2022
"The tale reflects the apocalyptic visions that obsessed many Americans in 1839. Four years earlier, Hayley's Comet had appeared and many people were gripped in a frenzy that the end of the world was imminent. Poe's tale, with its vision of the earth being consumed in a fiery ball, suited the tastes of the times." Sova, Dawn, B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z : the essential reference to his life and work. New York: Checkmark Books. (58) And of course Poe being attuned as to what intrigued the readers of his time composed The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion where the apocalypse would be initiated by the impact of a comet. Unlike the story by S. Austin Jr. titled The Comet printed in the annual volume of the Boston periodical The Token and Atlantic Souvenir for 1839 where a comet strikes the earth and causes tremendous tides that overwhelm humanity; Poe in writing obviously thought sticking to the biblical prophesy where the world will be destroyed by fire would impact his readers more in keeping with their beliefs in the bible. Several years later the Great Comet of 1843 was observed from February through April. With this happening Poe thought it an opportune time to republish his story. Poe inserted his story in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum of April 1, 1843 with a new title, "The Destruction of the World. [A Conversation between two Departed Spirits]. An let us not forget Poe would have put Burt Lancaster to shame as the Rainmaker when he drummed up more interest in his story by inserting another short article on another page titled:
"DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD.
We invite attention to the singular article, on another page, entitled “The Destruction of the World.” It details an imaginary conversation supposed to occur between two departed spirits, at a period subsequent to the Great Catastrophe which few doubt will, at some future epoch, take place.
The views embodied in this conversation are in strict accordance with philosophical speculation. The danger to be apprehended from collision with a comet is, to be sure, very little, and, from the gaseous nature of these erratic bodies, it has been contended that even actual contact would not have a fatal result; but the purport of the article in question seems to be the suggestion of a mode in which, through the cometary influence, the destruction of the earth might be brought about, and brought about in accordance with Prophecy. From the celestial visitant now present, [Great Comet of 1843] we have, of course, nothing to fear. It is now receding from the earth with a rapidity absolutely inconceivable, and, in a very short period, will be lost, and perhaps forever, to human eyes. But it came unheralded, and to-morrow its counterpart, or some wonder even more startling, [hmm, how about a meteor?] may make its appearance. A firm reliance upon the wisdom and goodness of the Deity is by no means inconsistent with a due sense of the manifold and multiform perils by which we are so fearfully environed." https://www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/t...
Oh Poe what a marketing whiz you would have made in modern times! What a brilliant idea to drop the Greek names and giving it a much more dynamic title and tying it into a current phenomena happening at that time. The follow up article placed on another page of that paper drawing attention to the story was another stroke of genius to conjure up more interest in that short story. Apocalyptical stories sell even today as Hollywood would attest to in its lucrative blockbuster themes of doom. Poe definitely had his pulse on his time and almost an uncanny sense of what would sell even in the future with the exception that today we would substitute meteors for comets.
"DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD.
We invite attention to the singular article, on another page, entitled “The Destruction of the World.” It details an imaginary conversation supposed to occur between two departed spirits, at a period subsequent to the Great Catastrophe which few doubt will, at some future epoch, take place.
The views embodied in this conversation are in strict accordance with philosophical speculation. The danger to be apprehended from collision with a comet is, to be sure, very little, and, from the gaseous nature of these erratic bodies, it has been contended that even actual contact would not have a fatal result; but the purport of the article in question seems to be the suggestion of a mode in which, through the cometary influence, the destruction of the earth might be brought about, and brought about in accordance with Prophecy. From the celestial visitant now present, [Great Comet of 1843] we have, of course, nothing to fear. It is now receding from the earth with a rapidity absolutely inconceivable, and, in a very short period, will be lost, and perhaps forever, to human eyes. But it came unheralded, and to-morrow its counterpart, or some wonder even more startling, [hmm, how about a meteor?] may make its appearance. A firm reliance upon the wisdom and goodness of the Deity is by no means inconsistent with a due sense of the manifold and multiform perils by which we are so fearfully environed." https://www.eapoe.org/works/mabbott/t...
Oh Poe what a marketing whiz you would have made in modern times! What a brilliant idea to drop the Greek names and giving it a much more dynamic title and tying it into a current phenomena happening at that time. The follow up article placed on another page of that paper drawing attention to the story was another stroke of genius to conjure up more interest in that short story. Apocalyptical stories sell even today as Hollywood would attest to in its lucrative blockbuster themes of doom. Poe definitely had his pulse on his time and almost an uncanny sense of what would sell even in the future with the exception that today we would substitute meteors for comets.
October 9, 2020
Los biógrafos de Poe dicen que basándose en una lluvia de meteoritos que vio en Baltimore en el año 1833 y sumado a sus ideas sobre la creación del universo, escribió este diálogo con intensas dosis de metafísica en el que nos narra el fin del mundo, arrasado por un fuego "como una intensa llama roja, cuya insuperable brillantez y abrasante calor no tiene nombre" y a la vez nos cuenta como es la muerte después de la muerte, o sea, que es lo que supuestamente vemos cuando ya "nos llevó la Sombra a través de la tumba" como el mismo autor lo dice.
La conversación de estas dos almas llamadas Eiros y Charmion es exquisita. Es una verdadera delicia leerla.
La conversación de estas dos almas llamadas Eiros y Charmion es exquisita. Es una verdadera delicia leerla.
March 5, 2016
Excellent story! It is short but very thought provoking about the end of the world. The subject must be as old as time itself. I enjoyed Poe's approach to it, having two spirits discuss it. Definitely not a typical end of the world story since the end of the world already happened. Poe's originality is one to be respected.
December 19, 2020
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion is a story that gives exactly what the title offers – that is, this one is a conversation between two individuals. On the surface, it sounds like a simple read. It is, and it isn’t. There is more to this one than I expected, and it had me eagerly powering through it to see how things played out. Although a quick tale, it is clear to see how this influenced lots of stories that came later.
Without a doubt, this is a quick read worth devouring.
Without a doubt, this is a quick read worth devouring.
October 5, 2012
This story is a little bit sci-fi, post apocalyptic. Poe's descriptions are always so detailed and vivid. I am always transported into the story as I read.
May 30, 2020
No lo veíamos como un fenómeno astronómico de los cielos, sino como un íncubo sobre nuestros corazones y una sombra sobre nuestros cerebros.
wooooah, me tuvo muy ansiosa.
September 2, 2019
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion by Edgar Allan Poe
4.25 stars
4.25 stars
This short story follows two men (who we can assume to be living in Paradise or Heaven) as they discuss the death of Eiros. Eiros experienced the apocalypse and discusses the fear of hearing the "mighty rushing waters" as well as the impending doom and internal as well as external disarray that humans began to experience. It's interesting in narrative choice as a way on Poe's part to diffuse theology and science together for the apocrypha genre. I'm glad that this was the first piece we discussed in my Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction class. I've never heard of this Poe story before and I'm quite intrigued by it. I would like to revisit this in the years to come since Poe is an author I reread regularly.
February 10, 2015
Esta historia es casi desconocida y además infravalorada, incluso yo con mi gran amor hacia Poe no la había leído por quién sabe qué razón pero ya lo hice y puedo decir que no es algo muy típico de Poe pero eso no le quita el valor.
Es un relato muy original y tal vez en algún momento se transformó en tedioso porque como lo dije anteriormente es algo bastante atípico en el autor pero de todas formas me gusto el concepto, la idea, las ganas, la rara belleza de esta historia.
Es un relato muy original y tal vez en algún momento se transformó en tedioso porque como lo dije anteriormente es algo bastante atípico en el autor pero de todas formas me gusto el concepto, la idea, las ganas, la rara belleza de esta historia.
May 15, 2021
4 Stars. Science fiction at its best. This story first appeared in "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine" in 1839. I caught it in "The Penguin Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" of 1938 and 1982. Perhaps, for Poe, its origins trace back to a recent visit of Halley's Comet to the vicinity of Earth in 1835 (a short-period comet, it has returned twice since, the last time in 1986). Poe's imaginative brain asks, "What would happen if the comet didn't skirt our planet, but smacked into it?" We open with two re-named friends meeting in the great beyond. Either in heaven or down below, you choose! Charmion had died a decade earlier, and asks his friend, Eiros, about the apocalypse which caused his death - a comet colliding with earth. The other worldly body had been detected well beyond our planet as it passed through the Jupiter system. People were anticipating it's arrival with excitement. That didn't last! Poe's reason for the wide-spread death which resulted is for you to discover, suffice to say that it wasn't until 1980 that a scientist first conjectured that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Poe does it again. What a fertile imagination. (May 2021)
January 25, 2023
Poe stan but this didn’t particularly stand out
January 31, 2023
Another dialogue. This one seems to begin where that of Monos and Una ended, as a discussion of death and eternity, but quickly becomes a detailed description of the apocalypse in the form of a meteor colliding with the Earth's atmosphere. Well done if far from profound.
June 20, 2018
But the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid
A giant comet is making its way too Earth. People go back and forth between panicking and hoping. They're worried about what the comet will do to Earth. (Rightly so, who wouldn't worry?)
Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations.
As the comet gets closer and closer, destruction seems more imminent. It's interesting to me that as people we never cease to worry about the same things. I actually imagine that people today would react in much the same way. Trump would probably send his "Space Force" up to take care of business. *rolling eyes*
Mankind grew paler as it came....It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts, and a shadow upon our brains.
The ending was weird, but that's pretty typical.
A giant comet is making its way too Earth. People go back and forth between panicking and hoping. They're worried about what the comet will do to Earth. (Rightly so, who wouldn't worry?)
Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations.
As the comet gets closer and closer, destruction seems more imminent. It's interesting to me that as people we never cease to worry about the same things. I actually imagine that people today would react in much the same way. Trump would probably send his "Space Force" up to take care of business. *rolling eyes*
Mankind grew paler as it came....It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts, and a shadow upon our brains.
The ending was weird, but that's pretty typical.
January 22, 2019
The tale of how it ended. We've heard it before but of course this short story was one of the first and it shows. The vivid description of mankind's end in this short story is very different from what is usually shown in movies and literature. As the comet approaches the last thing I expected was the world admiring the icy orb as it engulfed their view of the sky and yet it fits so well with who humans are. Their moment at the end of their times was truly magnificent but as I reflect on the story that I read just moments ago I find my self without emotions. Why? Because the total combustion of the entire population of Earth was forgettable to say the least. I felt more when they all stood as one to watch the comet in awe than I did when they choked and set on fire and that's saying something...
May 24, 2015
The sum total of this story really is what the synopsis says: one character telling another how the world ended. No interesting insights about human character. No surprise endings. I feel like this is a few pages from some longer work that has a point, because this story alone certainly doesn't have one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2018
an early piece of science fiction from Poe, one i found altogether unsatisfactory... the "conversation" seemed to be just a pretext for the meat of the tale, and one that could have been passed over for a more typical narrative... just a sparse tale that isn't particularly profound or intriguing or scary or, well, anything really... meh.
December 9, 2020
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Edgar Allan Poe
A conversation between two on the apocalypse,
I liked how science-y it was :p the elements of the atmosphere, the arrival of the comet, and the destruction of everything... a grounded sci-fi depiction in 1839
This is one of the conversations that I really liked.
Edgar Allan Poe
A conversation between two on the apocalypse,
I liked how science-y it was :p the elements of the atmosphere, the arrival of the comet, and the destruction of everything... a grounded sci-fi depiction in 1839
This is one of the conversations that I really liked.
August 9, 2015
Eiros and Charmion discussing how the world has ended
Read
February 7, 2018Poe's originality never ceases to amaze me.
May 16, 2019
As in the case of Monos and Una, here two souls also have a dialogue, where they narrate the end of the world. Very peculiar both of these dialogues, completely worth reading.
February 4, 2020
I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku (as best as I could):
"Denial's stage one.
Its mates might dissolve stout minds
Before the last comes."
"Denial's stage one.
Its mates might dissolve stout minds
Before the last comes."
November 6, 2020
I liked it but I wish it was longer.
February 5, 2020
A bit of dr who here. Unusual Poe
April 30, 2020
The end of world!! A couple lines seemed eerie and scary, although I think this one went a little too deep for me
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews