The Gold Bug [short story]

An enjoyable, crowd-pleasing short story about a hunt for buried treasure. The cryptography angle is interesting and, for its time, ground-breaking. Unfortunately, also of its time is the unashamedly racist depiction of the black servant Jupiter, which would be comical if not for its sincerity.

I was also interested to learn that The Gold-Bug served as inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson in writing Treasure Island, whilst the man who oversaw the breaking of the Japanese diplomatic codes in World War Two traced his interest in cryptography back to this story. This modest little gem made waves.

This short story explores Captain Kidd's lost treasure reputed to be on Sullivan's Island. Poe uses his interest in cryptography in his solution. Poe uses Gullah dialect for Jupiter's character which makes it difficult to read in places. This falls far short of most of Poe's work. Twenty-first century readers will view the story as racist, but the nineteenth-century audience likely would not have batted an eye at the overtones which are similar to those by other period writers. The book's font and illustrations are all brown. The scenes illustrated and map depict Sullivan's Island.

Una historia de venganza espontanea, pero no por ello menos impactante y macabra. Hop Frog demostró que "quien ríe al último, ríe mejor"

I think I actually read this short story for the first time in middle school, but I didn't remember anything about it until I read it again this afternoon. It's a pretty decent story, one that gets better as it progresses. I thought the riddle was quite interesting, and who doesn't like a treasure-hunting adventure story? There is some tough dialect and old school racism in here though, which might make a lot of readers uncomfortable (the whole "black people are stupid and don't know their right from left" thing left a really bad taste in my mouth). Pretty good, but not Poe's best.

I usually enjoy Poe, but this short story left me feeling empty. I felt that time had been wasted on nonsense. Nelson DeMille explores the Captain Kidd lost treasure, and does a better job than Poe. Both works gush with silly formulas and codes for finding the treasure. Poe uses hoity-toity language for one character and poor slave vernacular for another character. Then the story ends abruptly.

I thought this story was good, but I wanted more from it. The resolution didn't do enough for me. It needed more weirdness and intrigue.

Short story. A man decodes a cryptographed message. According to Wikipedia, Poe played a role in popularizing cryptography.