The Gold Bug

by Edgar Allan Poe

Overview

The Gold-Bug" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

When William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after being bitten by a scarab-like bug thought to be made of pure gold, he notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit him at his home on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina.

Legrand captured the bug but let someone else borrow it; so he draws a picture of the bug instead. The narrator says that the image looks like a skull. A month later, Jupiter, another character in the story, visits the narrator and asks him to return to Sullivan's Island on behalf of his master. Legrand, he says, who has been acting very strangely.

The story involves cryptography and secret writing codes, which was popular among readers at the time it was published.

This particular work by Poe was written for a contest, and it ended up winning the grand prize of $100. It was published in three installments, beginning in June 1843, and quickly became one of Poe’s most-read short stories.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012642271
Publisher:	Jeanne Gibson
Publication date:	02/15/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	188 KB

About the Author

Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849, was an American writer, poet, and editor who has been credited with being the father of modern detective-fiction. His short stories, especially, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Premature Burial,” are often included in high school literature classes, and who could ever forget the haunting line, “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore,’” from his well-known poem, The Raven?

His real name was Edgar Poe, but he was raised by the Allan family of West Virginia, who took him in after the death of his mother. His father had abandoned the family years earlier.

After failing at an army career, Poe turned to writing poetry and later switched his focus to prose which included short stories, literary criticism, and an effort at writing a journal of his own life. Unfortunately, this last endeavor was cut short when he died at the young age of 40.