The Gold Bug - Definition and Overview

"The Gold Bug" is a short story by one of the masters of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe. The story was first published in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper in June 1843 after Poe had won a competition held by the paper, receiving a prize of US$100.

The Gold Bug is a story of a strange man who seemingly goes mad after finding and being bitten by a bug thought to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit where he lives and then notifies the narrator upon arrival that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure. After much doubt on behalf of the narrator, the once-seemingly insane man does find a treasure, buried by the infamous pirate "The Kidd," that is estimated by the narrator to be worth about fourteen million dollars. Once the treasure is safely secured, the man goes into an elaborate explanation of how he knew about the treasure's location, based on a set of occurrences that happened after the discovery of the gold bug.

The story involves cryptography with a detailed description of a method for solving a simple substitution cipher using letter frequencies. The cryptogram was:

53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡.)4‡);806*;48†8
¶60))85;18*:‡*8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96
*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*—4)8
¶8*;4069285);)6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡
1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4
(‡?34;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;

External link

• The full text of the storyfrom (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeGold.html) the University of Virginia Library
• Free eBook of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1 (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2147) at Project Gutenberg — includes The Gold Bug