However, Poe retired from his role at the "Messenger" on January 3, 1837, as the installments were being published; some scholars suggest he was fired and this led him to abandoning the novel. His split with the "Messenger" began a "blank period" where he did not publish much and suffered from unemployment, poverty, and no success in his literary pursuits. Poe soon realized writing a book-length narrative was a necessary career decision, partly because he had no steady job and the economy was suffering from the Panic of 1837. He also set part of the story as a quest to Antarctica to capitalize the public's sudden interest in that topic.