The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allan Poe. It provides a thorough exploration of the story’s plot, characters and main themes, including adventure, deception and cryptography. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 35-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Edgar Allan Poe
• Presentation of The Gold-Bug
• Summary of The Gold-Bug
• Character study
  • William Legrand
  • The narrator
  • Jupiter
• Analysis of The Gold-Bug
  • Plot
  • A short story reminiscent of tales of adventure

About The Gold-Bug

The Gold-Bug is a short story written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe which was first published in 1843. Told in the style of a classic adventure tale, it follows a group of companions as they embark on what appears at first to be a wild goose chase, but which the protagonist eventually reveals to be a search for Captain Kidd’s fabled buried treasure. Although Poe is better known for his more macabre tales today, The Gold-Bug was the most widely-read of his tales during his own lifetime, and greatly popularised the notions of encrypted messages and buried treasure in the public imagination.

About Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor and critic who was best known for his poetry and short stories. While his writing was moderately successful during his lifetime, he was plagued by personal and professional misfortune, and he died in 1849 after falling into depression and alcoholism following his wife’s death two years previously. Today he is widely considered to be one of the most influential American Romanticists and the inventor of detective fiction, as well as a forerunner of the science fiction genre.