The Usher family fixer, Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill), is a man of mysterious past who gets his name from an 1838 novel by Poe, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket." Though the original story echoes the same themes of rough survival circumstances, on the show, it's modernized in the context of the Transglobe Expedition that Arthur was a part of. In the novel, the titular character gets stranded at sea while on a whaling ship and has to fend for himself. The whaling vessel in question is actually named "The Grampus," which is Lenore's (Kyliegh Curran) nickname for her grandfather Roderick on the show. It's also alluded to in episode two, when Lenore makes a wooden ship in a bottle, and her father, Freddie (Henry Thomas), suggests she name it "The Grampus."
At another point in the series, Arthur cheekily says he's "having Richard Parker for dinner," which, in the original source material, was the name of the character who was cannibalized by his fellow sailors, including, you guessed it, Arthur Pym.
