The Purloined Letter

The Purloined Letter, short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in an unauthorized version in 1844. An enlarged and authorized version was published in The Gift (an annually published gift book containing occasional verse and stories) in 1845 and was collected the same year in Poe’s Tales. The Paris police prefect approaches amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin with a puzzle: a cabinet minister has stolen a letter from a woman of royalty whom he...