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Overview
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter” was first published in an 1844 annual gift book publication called The Gift: A Christmas, New Year, and Birthday Present, alongside works from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson
. The third and final of Poe’s detective stories featuring the eccentric C. Auguste Dupin, Poe considered it the best of these “ratiocination” tales, as he called them. Instead of solving a murder, Dupin here delves into the politics of the French royal court as he attempts to save the Queen from being blackmailed by a conniving court minister.Read the free full text, the full story summary, the full story analysis, and explanations of important quotes from “The Purloined Letter.”
