The Gold-Bug

By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is one of America’s greatest and most dark and mysterious writers. The circumstances surrounding his untimely death are still unknown, as is what made him tick. Part of the American Romantic Movement, Poe is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, and he was one of the first Americans to master the art of the short story. Long before Sherlock Holmes became famous, Poe invented the genre of detective fiction, and his works influenced literature around the world in genres as wide ranging as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work still appear throughout popular culture today, popping up in literature, music, films, and even on the gridiron; the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens got their name from his most famous poem.


Poe's best known fiction was Gothic, which was extremely popular at the time. Poe was a master of the genre, but he also realized that it would help him live off his writing, which was his goal. As a result, his most common themes involved death and madness, including its signs and physical manifestations. The darkness of his work is considered by many to be a reaction to Transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krill Press
• Release date: Nov 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781518312595

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American writer, poet, and critic.  Best known for his macabre prose work, including the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” his writing has influenced literature in the United States and around the world.

Book preview

THE GOLD-BUG

..................

Edgar Allan Poe

CROW PRESS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Gold-Bug

By

Edgar Allan Poe

The Gold-Bug

Published by Crow Press

New York City, NY

First published 1843

Copyright © Crow Press, 2015

All rights reserved

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FOREWORD

Edgar Allan Poe (19 January 1809 – 7 October 1849) was an American writer best known for stories of mystery and horror. Poe also wrote poetry, including the well known poem The Raven. Not much is known about Poe’s untimely death, but it cannot be debated that he has had a great influence on American literature.

This edition of Poe’s The Gold-Bug is specially formatted with a Table of Contents.

The Gold-Bug

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!

He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.

— All in the Wrong.

MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship — for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens;-his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called