Who Wrote the Purloined Letter?

In “Who Wrote the Purloined Letter?” Russell Reising engages the history of Poe criticism of “The Purloined Letter.” Drawing on leads from such scholars as Daniel Hoffman, leads ignored by later critics, including nearly every essay in the well-known book The Purloined Poe, Reising situates the role of Poe’s amateur detective, C. Auguste Dupin, in the context of other Poe narrators, especially those driven by a thirst for revenge following either a real or an imagined slight. This essay focuses on questions not asked by earlier critics and follows that inquiry to a detailed theory of the story’s real mystery—that is, who was it that wrote the titular letter stolen by Minister D in the first place?