What is the author's style in MS. Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe?

This is another first-person narrative. He starts off by writing that: "I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime." (pg. 78) He goes to great lengths to describe the realistic nature of his character as a way of gaining credibility for his unbelievable tale. Poe's narrator looks deeper into his own self throughout the narrative and grows ashamed of his former self: "When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions." (pg, 92)