Edgar Allan Poe

The Gold-Bug Edgar Allan Poe

"The Gold Bug" first appeared in two installments of the (Philadelphia) Dollar Newspaper in June of 1843. Poe won a $100 prize for his submission of the story to a contest held by that periodical's editors. It quickly became the most popular of his works, surpassed only by "The Raven" as a commercial success. The story is told by an unnamed narrator, a physician on whose word we can presumably rely. It concerns an extraordinary treasure hunt, conducted by its main character, William Legrand, that took place many years before the present time of the narration. Legrand, we are told, was a descendant of an old Huguenot family from New Orleans. Like Poe himself, Legrand was well-educated, but having experienced some unspecified reversal in his financial fortunes, he was, at the story's start, a poor man. He was also something of a misanthrope, living in voluntary seclusion in a small hut that he built on Sullivan's Island a short distance from the Atlantic Coast city of Charleston, South Carolina, with his servant, the freed slave Jupiter, and a Newfoundland dog. We are told in advance that Legrand was given to sudden mood swings, alternating between enthusiasm and melancholy.