Sleuthing out a Solution: Edgar Allan Poe and His Crypto-Mysteries
By Susan Amper
October 7, 2020On this, the 171st anniversary of his death, Edgar Allan Poe is more popular than ever and more misunderstood. Mystery writer S. S. Van Dine describes the detective story as a contest, in which the author seeks to “outwit the reader” by presenting a puzzle that the reader is unable to solve, despite being given…