Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detectives in literature. Photographs of Poe's many loves and the literary figures he satired in his stories are included. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print.
The Delphi Classics edition of Poe includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre.
He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
Born in Boston, he was the second child of two actors. His father abandoned the family in , and his mother died the following year.
Although they never formally adopted him, Poe was with them well into young adulthood. It looks like Dupin has already figured out where the Prefect is going wrong in this case. Related Quotes with Explanations. The letter, he says, has the power to bring scandal to a certain person of high honor and give the person with the letter great power.
The Prefect reveals that the thief is a Minister , who snuck into the royal bedroom and accosted the royal lady and seeing the contents of the letter, blackmailed her. He then stole the letter, in her full view, and replaced it with his own replica document. Dupin notes that because the royal lady is aware of the theft it gives the thief power over her. The Prefect confirms that the thief has been using this power. Helpless, the lady has come to the Prefect desperate for help.
Poe paints a world of corrupt royal hierarchies and abuses of power. The Prefect, who is considered thorough but simple and uncreative, is in charge of the safety of the most high profile figures in the country. The Minister, who should be protecting the royal family, is seeking to use them for his own ends. And the man who can solve the case is Dupin, an eccentric poet.
He has therefore been engaged in this search for three months, refusing to quit — a handsome reward awaits the finder of the letter. The police attack the case head on. They search the apartment, over and over, more and more carefully, refusing to quit.
The narrator assumes that the minister is not carrying it with him, and the prefect admits that the police have already stopped and searched him. The prefect seems to be in possession of every advantage in this case.
Not only is the Minister conveniently absent for long portions of the day but the police are also given ample opportunity to search the man himself. And yet they can find nothing. Dupin thinks they should have known that the Minister would be too clever not to expect to be stopped and searched.
The prefect says that though the minister is not a fool, he is a poet, which is a very similar thing. Dupin admits that he too is a bit of a poet.
The prefect describes his method of investigation, how he looked over every inch of the apartment. They studied every rung in the hotel with a microscope to detect any hint of dust, and then the bedclothes and every item of furnishings, and then scrutinized the walls and surfaces of the house in the same way. The long description of each process in the search goes into microscopic detail. The direct and systematic way that the police are able to carry out their search removes the story for a moment from the idea of crime — danger seems far away.
The narrator of "The Purloined Letter" is astonished, but the prefect again reminds him of the large reward. When the prefect is done with his exhaustive list of investigated areas, the narrator thinks that it must follow that the letter is not after all within the apartment. The prefect agrees. He now asks Dupin for advice but all Dupin can say is to search the apartment again.
He asks if the prefect has a description of the letter itself, and the prefect eagerly gives one in minute detail from a notebook. He then leaves, feeling at a loss about the whole case. At this point the prefect needs Dupin to give him advice but Dupin only tells the prefect to keep doing what the police have already unsuccessfully tried. The prefect returns the following month and, when asked about the purloined letter, is disappointed to admit no further developments. He made another thorough search but found nothing.
Dupin asks how much the reward is and the prefect says that he will personally pay fifty thousand francs to anyone who can bring him the letter. Dupin is completely in charge of this situation. Even though he gave the prefect lousy advice the last time, the prefect returns, showing how dependent he is on Dupin.
Dupin then calmly asks the prefect to write him a check, and when he has it, he will hand over the letter. The narrator of "The Purloined Letter" and the prefect are in shock at this turn of events.
The prefect writes the check for fifty thousand francs, and Dupin, true to his word, produces the letter. The prefect is overjoyed and rushes off immediately.
Dupin then explains himself to the narrator of "The Purloined Letter". He says that he had faith that the police would do a completely thorough search of the apartment, as far as their methods allowed. But this method is not suited to the criminal in question — the prefect has been both too shallow and too deep in his search. Dupin gives an example to illustrate his point. He reminds the narrator of a schoolboy game, where one boy conceals marbles in his hand, and the other must guess whether it is an even or odd number of marbles.
Dupin compares the schoolboy to famous thinkers like Machiavelli. But his sympathies also allow him to see genius in unlikely places, this child on the school playground for example. This sensitivity to displays of intelligence in many walks of life is significant in making Dupin seem more human. So, the accuracy of the guess depends on the accuracy with which the opponent is judged. Dupin says that the police only think about what they would have done in the situation, where they would have hidden the letter, and this is only accurate of a kind of average, Prefect-like intelligence and not of the more unusual kind of the Minister.
Their problem is they never adjust their approach, they only exaggerate it, as they did by searching the house over again. By assuming that the letter can be found by something as basic as searching, they are completely disregarding the acumen of the criminal.
There is something about the mind of a criminal and minds themselves that fascinates Dupin. This passion and his unusual sensitivity and sympathy for other minds makes him an intimidating character, because he fills neither the role of detective nor the role of criminal, but somewhere in between or both at once. All fools are poets, says Dupin , but it does not necessarily follow that all poets are fools. The narrator remembers that the minister is a renowned mathematician and wonders if Dupin has misattributed the title of poet, but Dupin claims he knows the man well, and he is both mathematician and poet.
The narrator of "The Purloined Letter" thinks this is a strange theory. It is completely contrary to popular opinion about mathematics. His identification as a poet and a mathematician as well as his obvious ability to tell a good story and create suspense likens him convincingly to Poe himself.
The concept of poetry and methodology is what makes up a successful horror story, whose plot must be flawless but creative enough to deceive.
Dupin explains that he finds fault with forms of thinking that are not abstractly logical. He thinks math is only concerned with shapes and quantities, which are truths of the relation of one thing to another, rather than the true quality of things.
And the mathematician does this with the theories and equations he holds true, and will listen to no other mode of thought. Dupin summons the arenas of poetry and mathematics, the scope of mythology and the detail of geometry, so that the range of his knowledge seems limitless.
Dupin returns to the Minister. He knows that, because the minister has fooled the Prefect , he has the abilities of a poet as well as a mathematician, and understood everything that the police were likely to do in response to his crime.
We are made aware that Dupin could probably quite easily commit some crimes himself. Dupin reminds the narrator of "The Purloined Letter" what he said to the prefect when he visited, about the riddle being too self-evident.
He believes that the material world and the metaphorical world are strongly connected. He uses two examples.
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