The Gold-Bug

A chance discovery on a South Carolina island sets in motion one of the most famous treasure hunts in American literature. When William Legrand becomes obsessed with a curious golden scarab, his friend is drawn into a night expedition, a coded cipher, and the search for Captain Kidd's buried fortune. Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 tale is a landmark of detective fiction, prized for its brooding atmosphere and for the cold logic of its solution.

This unabridged recording follows the story from Legrand's isolated hut to the myrtle coppice, and from baffling symbols to a deciphered message, read in measured, atmospheric English by Thomas Whitmore. Presented here complete in four parts, it is an ideal introduction to Poe's invention of the rational detective and to one of the most ingenious puzzles ever written in English.