Influence
"The Gold-Bug" inspired Robert Louis Stevenson in his novel about treasure-hunting, Treasure Island (1883). Stevenson acknowledged this influence: "I broke into the gallery of Mr. Poe... No doubt the skeleton is conveyed from Poe."
Poe played a major role in popularizing cryptograms in newspapers and magazines in his time period and beyond. William F. Friedman, America's foremost cryptologist, initially became interested in cryptography after reading "The Gold-Bug" as a child - interest he later put to use in deciphering Japan's PURPLE code during World War II. "The Gold-Bug" also includes the first use of the term "cryptograph" (as opposed to "cryptogram").
Poe had been stationed at Fort Moultrie from November 1827 through December 1828 and utilized his personal experience at Sullivan's Island in recreating the setting for "The Gold-Bug". It was also here that Poe first heard the stories of pirates like Captain Kidd. The residents of Sullivan's Island embrace this connection to Poe and have named their public library after him. Local legend in Charleston says that the poem "Annabel Lee" was also inspired by Poe's time in South Carolina. Poe also set part of "The Balloon-Hoax" and "The Oblong Box" in this vicinity.
O. Henry alludes to the stature of "The Gold-Bug" within the buried-treasure genre in his short story "Supply and Demand". When another character learns that the main characters are searching for treasure, he asks them if they have been reading Edgar Allan Poe.
Read more about this topic: The Gold-Bug
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“The higher the state of civilization, the more completely do the actions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way. But in this water there are countless objects at different depths; and certain influences will give certain kinds of those objects an upward influence which may be intense enough and continue long enough to bring them into the upper visible layer. After the impulse ceases they commence to sink downwards.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)