The Purloined Letter

Author	Edgar Allan Poe
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Detective fiction short story
Publisher	The Gift for 1845
Publication date	December 1844
Media type	Print (periodical)

"The Purloined Letter" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories. It is the third of the three stories featuring the detective Auguste Dupin; these stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. It first appeared in The Gift for 1845 (1844) and was soon reprinted in numerous journals and newspapers. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, literary critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... This article is in need of attention. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... See also: 1843 in literature, other events of 1844, 1845 in literature, list of years in literature. ... This article is about the magazine as a published medium. ... Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, literary critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ... Detective Story is a 1951 film which tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detectives squad. ... Auguste Dupin is a fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe. ...

Plot summary

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Purloined Letter

An unnamed narrator is meeting with the famous Parisian amateur detective Auguste Dupin, and discussing some of his most celebrated cases, when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known only as G-. The Prefect has a case he would like to discuss with M. Dupin. Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ... This article is about the capital of France. ... Gumshoe redirects here. ... Auguste Dupin is a fictional character created by Edgar Allan Poe. ... A prefect (from the Latin praefectus, perfect participle of praeficere: make in front, i. ...

A letter, the contents of which - if revealed - would be highly compromising, has been stolen from the private sitting room of the Queen. The culprit is the unscrupulous Minister D-. He was in the Queen’s room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been arrogantly blackmailing the Queen for several months over its return.

The Prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree:

1. The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen. Therefore Minister D- still has the letter in his possession.

2. The ability to produce the letter at a moment’s notice is almost as important as possession of the letter itself. Therefore he must have the letter close at hand.

The Prefect says that he and his police detectives have made a most thorough search of the Ministerial hotel where D- stays and have found nothing. They have checked behind the wallpaper and under the carpets. The Prefect explains that the letter could be rolled up very small and hidden in a chair leg. Without destroying all the furniture, his men have examined the tables and chairs with microscopes but have found no sign of interference. Robert Hookes microscope (1665) - an engineered device used to study living systems. ...

Dupin asks the Prefect if he knows what he is looking for and the Prefect reads off a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorises. The Prefect then bids them good day.

A month later, the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter’s safe return. He will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter. The Prefect is astonished but knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes the check and Dupin produces the letter. The Prefect quickly determines that it is genuine and races off to deliver it to the Queen.

Alone together again, the narrator asks Dupin how he managed to find the letter. Dupin explains how the Paris police are very competent within their limitations, but have underestimated who they are dealing with. The Prefect mistakes the Minister D- for a fool because he is a poet. For example, Dupin explains how an eight-year old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called “Odds and Evens”. The boy was able to determine the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move.

D- knew the police detectives were highly intelligent and would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place. Realising this, D- then hid the letter in plain sight, but disguised.

Dupin visits the minister at his hotel. Complaining of ‘weak eyes’ Dupin is wearing a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which is to disguise his eyes as he searches for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he sees a half-torn letter and knows he has found what he came for. Striking up a conversation with D- about a subject he knows the minister is interested in, Dupin examines the letter more closely. It does not look like the letter the Prefect described so minutely; the writing is different and it is sealed not with the ‘ducal arms of the S- family, but with D’s monogram. Dupin notices that the paper is chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and then another. Dupin concludes that D- wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal. The Chi-Rho, a monogram of the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ E and L embroider for clothes and bedding, for a wife by the initials E L or L E A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or...

Dupin leaves a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Striking up the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D- is startled by a gunshot in the street. While he goes to investigate, Dupin switches D-’s letter for a duplicate. The man with the gun is in Dupin’s pay. This article is about the receptacle or vessel called a box. ...

The narrator asks Dupin why he bothered to leave a duplicate. Dupin replies that, if he did not, he probably wouldn’t have left the hotel alive! As a political supporter of the Queen and old enemy of the Minister, he also hopes that D- will unknowingly try to continue to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with an insulting note that also implies that Dupin was the thief: “Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.” Literally translated this means “If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes.” In Greek mythology, King Atreus (Greek: Ατρεύς, Atreús) (fearless) of Mycenae was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. ... In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops, King of Mycenae, and Hippodamia and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. ...

Analysis

The epigraph "Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" (Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness) given by Poe to Seneca was not found in his known work. In literature, an epigraph is a quotation that is placed at the start of a work or section that expresses in some succinct way an aspect or theme of what is to follow. ... Bust, traditionally thought to be Seneca, now identified by some as Hesiod. ...

Dupin is not actually a professional detective. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Dupin takes up the case mostly for amusement and even denies a financial reward. In "The Purloined Letter," however, Dupin specifically undertakes the case to pursue a financial reward. He is not motivated by pursuing truth, emphasized by the lack of information about the contents of the purloined letter.^[1]

While a seemingly simple story, "The Purloined Letter" can open discussions regarding the taking of power, the position of the monarch and of women in 19th century society, the nature of deductive reasoning, and the literary convention of the Gothic double. Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A constitutional monarchy is a form of government established under a constitutional system which acknowledges an elected or hereditary monarch as head of state, as opposed to an absolute monarchy, where the monarch is not bound by a... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Deductive reasoning is the kind of reasoning where the conclusion is necessitated by previously known premises. ... In literature, the term Gothic double refers to an essential duality within a single character on the further presumption that this duality centers on the polarity of good and evil. ...

The story was used by the French psychologist Jacques Lacan and the philosopher Jacques Derrida to present opposing structuralist interpretations. The two exchanged a series of letters concerning on the nature of desire.^[2] Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French IPA: ) (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: [1]) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. ...

French linguist Jean-Claude Milner offered in Détections fictives , Le Seuil, collection « Fictions & Cie », 1985 supporting evidence that Dupin and D- are brothers, based on the final reference to Atreus and his twin brother, Thyestes. This article is about the year. ... In Greek mythology, King Atreus (Greek: Ατρεύς, Atreús) (fearless) of Mycenae was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. ... In Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops, King of Mycenae, and Hippodamia and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. ...

Literary significance and criticism

In May of 1844 Poe wrote to James Russell Lowell that he considered it "perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination" just before its first publication. Jan. ... James Russell Lowell (b. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ...

Publication history

This story first appeared in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1844. Poe earned $12 for its first printing.^[3] It was later included in the 1845 collection Tales By Edgar A. Poe. 1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

References

1. ^ Whalen, Terance. "Poe and the American Publishing Industry" collected in A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, J. Gerald Kennedy, editor. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0195121503 p. 86
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ Ostram, John Ward. "Poe's Literary Labors and Rewards" in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987. p. 40

External links

• The Purloined Letter, online at Ye Olde Library
• The Purloined Letter at American Literature
• Full text on PoeStories.com with hyperlinked vocabulary words.
• Dept. of English, fju.edu analyzes the story with the help of diagrams!
• Cliffs Notes on Poe's Short Stories has a page on The Purloined Letter