Publisher Description
First published in a 1844 literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1845, The Purloined Letter is the third and final story that features Poe's detective, C. Auguste Dupin. In it, a letter containing compromising information has been stolen from the boudoir of an unnamed woman by the unscrupulous Minister D-. The police offer a reward for the return of the letter and amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin obliges them. After collecting the reward, Dupin relates the ingenious way he determined the letter's location to an unnamed narrator. The story is an important early forerunner of the modern detective story, and has a similar plot to A Scandal in Bohemia by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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About Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1848) transformed the American literary landscape with his innovations in the short story genre and his haunting lyrical poetry, and he is credited with inventing American gothic horror and detective fiction. He was first published in 1827 and then began a career as a magazine writer and editor and a sharp literary critic. In 1845 the publication of his most famous poem, “The Raven,” brought him national fame.
About Chris Lutkin
Chris Lutkin has
been in and around the business of acting for more than twenty-five years. A member
of Ensemble Studio Theater for twenty years, his proud moments include being
directed by Jerry Zaks in a play called Buddy-Pals
and working with Horton Foote on his play Lily
Dale playing Horace, and putting in more than four hundred off-Broadway
performances in a Perfect Crime.