In which state is the setting of Poe's story 'The Gold-Bug'?

The setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” is Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina.

William Legrand lives in a remote cabin on the island with his servant, Jupiter. The coastal setting is closely tied to Poe’s own life: he was stationed at nearby Fort Moultrie from November 1827 through December 1828. Poe used his memories of the island and its surroundings when creating the story’s atmosphere of isolation, buried treasure, and pirate legends.

The plot begins on Sullivan’s Island but later moves to the mainland during the nighttime treasure hunt. Legrand uses a cryptographic message, a skull, and a tree to locate Captain Kidd’s hidden treasure. That movement can cause confusion about the setting, but the story’s home base and opening location are clearly on Sullivan’s Island.

Published in 1843, “The Gold-Bug” won a Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper writing contest and earned Poe a $100 prize. Its ingenious substitution cipher helped popularize cryptography with nineteenth-century readers and made the story one of Poe’s most widely read works during his lifetime.