The Purloined Letter
Critique • Qjuotes
The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1845First book publication
December 1844 in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1845
Literature form
Story
Genres
Crime, mystery, intrigue
Writing language
English
Author's country
United States
Length
Approx. 5,500 words
Notable lines
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisième, No. 33, Rue Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber.
— First lines
"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."
"As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect."
"Why—it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank—that would have been insulting. D——, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words—
"'— — Un dessein si funeste,
S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crébillon's 'Atrée.'" .
— Last lines
Critique • Quotes
See also:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Buy the book:
The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales
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