Text: Alfred Allan Kern, “News for Bibliophiles,” The Nation (New York, NY), October 23, 1913, pp. 381-382

[page 381, column 3, continued:]

NEWS FOR BIBLIOPHILES

In an essay entitled “Was Poe Accurate?” Prof. A. H. Tolman says

His presumption, however, with regard to the cryptograph is not entirely warranted, for this, too, contains some mathematical statements which are impossible

“The Gold Bug” was first published In the Dollar Newspaper (Philadelphia) for June 21 and 28, 1843, where it won a prize of one hundred dollars Poe had sold the story to Graham for fifty-two dollars, but before its publication had asked Graham to return it to him. “I had returned him the story of ‘The Gold Bug’ at his own request, as he found that he could dispose of it very advantageously elsewhere” (Graham's Magazine, March, 1850). Copies of the Dollar Newspaper are no longer accessible, but the story was fortunately reprinted in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier, June 24, July 1 and 8, 1843, copies of which are owned by the Pennsylvania Historical Society of Philadelphia.* It was later included in the 1845 edition of Poe's works.

When Poe first wrote the cryptograph, he made the angle at which the telescope was to be elevated “forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes.” But in the manuscript corrections which he made in the Lorimer Graham copy, dcubtless realizing that his angle of elevation was a bit high, he changed the “forty-one” to “twenty-one” and rade the necessary changes in the order cf the characters in the cryptograph, adding the ] to represent the letter w. However, he neglected to make the corresponding changes in the table of the characters in the cryptograph, but, save for the addition of the } to represent w, let it remain as it was when the cryptograph contained the word “forty-one.” The change of degree Involved the addition of the letters t w e n to the cryptograph and the subtraction of the letters f o r from it. He should therefore have so changed the numbers which represented the number of times these letters occurred as to make them read as follows:

And a corresponding change should be made in all editions based upon the Lorimer Graham text, some of which are those edited by Stedman-Woodberry, Harrison (Virginia ed.), Stewart, Trent, Perry, Newcomer, Gambrill, and the volume in Macmillan's Pocket Classics. [page 382:]

But there is even another mistake in the table. If the characters in the original cryptograph be counted, it will be found that there are 203 of them. If the characters as enumerated in the table are counted, it will be found that there are but 193 of them. Evidently then, in constructing the table, Poe overlooked some of the characters; an investigation reveals the fact that he neglected to count the character (, which stands for r. This is the more remarkable since mention is made of this character in the text following the table. There are ten of these, and when they are added to the table the number of characters in both cryptograph and table becomes the same. With the exception of Lowell's edition (published by Crowell, n. d.), this mistake is repeated in all editions not based upon the Lorimer Graham text, among which are those of Duyckinck, Griswold, Ingram, Stoddard, Hale, Graves, and the Cameo edition.

Not having included the ( in his original table, Poe naturally overlooked it in the Lorimer Graham corrections. It should therefore be added to the table in those editions based on the Lorimer Graham text, but with a change of the ten to nine, since in the change from “forty-one” to “twenty-one” an r was lost.

In the key to the cryptograph there occurs a similar oversight. Poe says:

To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a tabular form ir It will stand thus:

We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters represented

He has neglected to include tn the list the character which represents u and which he had already solved.*

In “The Purloined Letter” it will be remembered that Poe represents Dupin and himself as sitting in a dark room smoking, when the Prefect G —— enters. Dupin starts to light the lamp, but forbears when he hears that G —— has brought him a matter requiring reflection, it beIng his theory that he can think better in the dar) In two Instances In the tale Poe seems to have nodded slightly — perhaps the dark was to blame, perhaps it was the Prefect G —— .

In the paragraph

It is probable that the object of the whirl-wind of smoke was to hide the ironical smile upon Dupin's face as he thus openly ridiculed the Prefect. If so, would not the darkness have afforded ample concealment? Again, at the close of his visit, the Prefect produces a memorandum-book and proceeds to read aloud a minute account of the infernal, and especially the external, of appearance of the document.” If it was dark when he arrived, surely at the time of his departure it must have been too dark for this Incident to have taken place!

As I began with a quotation from Professor Tolman's article, I cannot do better than [column 2:] to conclude with a slightly condensed paragraph from the same source.

But a truce to petty fault-finding! Poe's fame is secure. . . . His was essentially an original mind; he was a literary . . . discoverer, and the world does not often forget its discoverers. Whether we think of the detective story; of the scientific romance; of what we may call “the short story of atmosphere”; of certain fundamental truths in “the philosophy of composition”; of the true theory of English versification, since elaborated by Sidney Lanier; or of Poe's own peculiar type of intensely musical poetry — we can say with substantial truth, that he was —

ALFRED ALLAN KERN.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 381, column 3:]

* Campbell, Nation, XCIII, 363.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 382, column 1:]

* This mistake seems to have been noticed by Stoddard in 1884, who is followed by Hale, Graves and the Cameo edition. The remaining texts have the old incorrect reading.