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    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter"
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter"
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter"
    Ebook41 pages29 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535831673
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Purloined Letter" - Gale

      4

      The Purloined Letter

      Edgar Allan Poe

      1844

      Introduction

      Modern mystery writers owe a debt of gratitude to Edgar Allan Poe. Although he is primarily known for his horror stories, Poe also wrote a series of what he called, tales of ratiocination, which helped define the conventions used in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective stories, and which helped influence the development of the modern mystery. One of Poe’s most popular detective stories is The Purloined Letter. Originally published in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1844, an annual magazine, the story was reproduced in Poe’s Tales by Edgar A. Poe the following year. Today, a copy of the story can be found in The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales, published in 1998 by Signet Classic. As with the other stories that feature C. Auguste Dupin, Poe’s famous detective protagonist, The Purloined Letter emphasizes the use of deductive reasoning—a specific type of logic that examines all factors in a case objectively—to solve mysteries that have stumped others.

      In this story, as in other Poe detective stories, among the people stumped are the members of the French police force, who attempt to find a stolen letter which is being used for political blackmail. The police launch a series of scientific and precise, but misguided, investigations by using logical methods that are based solely on past experience and established systems of thought. Their investigative methods reflect the types of rational thought prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century. In the end, the police are unsuccessful in finding the letter because the thief has hidden it in the most unexpected place—right under their noses. Dupin figures this out and recovers the letter, turning the political tables on the thief.

      Author Biography

      Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s most influential writers, was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents, both struggling actors, died when he was only three years old. Poe was raised—though never officially adopted—by John and Frances Allan in Richmond, Virginia. Allan, a prosperous tobacco merchant, sent Poe to the finest schools, including the University of Virginia, where Poe immediately gambled away all of his money, racked up a massive amount of debt, and drank his first semester away. Even so, he managed to do well in his classes and earn the highest university honors.

      This pattern of producing good work under unfavorable circumstances continued throughout Poe’s

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