The Purloined Letter

“The Purloined Letter,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, was first published in the literary magazine The Gift in 1844. It is the third of his detective stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin, with the first two being “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842).

This study guide refers to the version collected in The Purloined Poe, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1988.

Poe opens with an epigraph in Latin that he attributes to Seneca, although the source of the quote has never been determined: “Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio,” which translates to “Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than too much cunning.”

The story begins on a dark evening in Paris sometime in the 19th century. The unnamed narrator and his friend, C. Auguste Dupin, are sitting quietly together smoking pipes when they are interrupted by a visit from Monsieur G——, the prefect of the Parisian police. Dupin rises to turn on a lamp but decides against it once he learns that Monsieur G—— has come to consult with him about a case. After commenting that the case is quite simple yet “so excessively odd” (7), Monsieur G—— explains the details to

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