"A Few Words on Secret Writing" (1841) is an essay on cryptography by American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe. Following the publication of his short story "The Gold-Bug", where the plot involves deciphering a secret message, public interest grew in how secret messages may be composed and decoded. Poe held a "cryptographic challenge" in Alexander's Weekly Messenger starting in Dec. 1839, where he invited readers to submit ciphers which he...
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"A Few Words on Secret Writing" (1841) is an essay on cryptography by American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe. Following the publication of his short story "The Gold-Bug", where the plot involves deciphering a secret message, public interest grew in how secret messages may be composed and decoded.
Poe held a "cryptographic challenge" in Alexander's Weekly Messenger starting in Dec. 1839, where he invited readers to submit ciphers which he would then solve and publish in the newspaper. The essay "A Few Words on Secret Writing", published in Graham's Magazine in 1841, outlined Poe's view on ciphers and deciphering.
In the article, Poe claimed to have solved about a hundred legitimate ciphers submitted by his readers, all except for two, which, finally solved in 2000, may suggest that Poe, not a reader, was the author of the remaining two coded messages.
