In what year was Poe’s story “The Purloined Letter” first published? It was first published in 1844.
Edgar Allan Poe’s detective story appeared in December 1844 in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1845, a literary annual published in Philadelphia by Carey and Hart and edited by Eliza Leslie. The volume’s title refers to the year it was marketed for, which can cause confusion: the story’s publication date is 1844, even though the annual was called The Gift for 1845.
“The Purloined Letter” is the third and final story featuring Poe’s analytical detective C. Auguste Dupin. The earlier Dupin stories are “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” In this case, Dupin solves a political theft by recognizing that a letter hidden in plain sight can escape an overly systematic search.
Poe later regarded the tale as perhaps the best of his stories of ratiocination, or logical reasoning. It was soon reprinted in newspapers and journals, helping establish Dupin as an important ancestor of modern fictional detectives. The later 1845 reprints are not the story’s first publication.