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:
“The woman who can’t influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Women stand related to beautiful nature around us, and the enamoured youth mixes their form with moon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer. They heal us of awkwardness by their words and looks. We observe their intellectual influence on the most serious student. They refine and clear his mind: teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and difficult.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)