E.A. Poe Cryptographic Challenge and Its Solution

Introduction - Thesis

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] was a fascination with cryptography. In addition to numerous references to the secret writings of some of his poems and stories, such as Gold-Bug, ran his own "cryptographic challenge", which was published in the beginning of Alexander's Weekly Messenger in December 1839. In this series, Poe challenged his readers to submit their cryptographs to him, claiming that he could solve them all. Over the next six months, Poe published the solution of ciphers submitted by his readers, and shared his views on the nature of cryptography. (Sova, 15-29)

Poe's association with Messenger, it ended in May 1840, but it took about about a year later in the article he wrote for the magazine Graham, entitled "A few words about Secret Writing." In this article, and the three supplements that followed, argued that we have solved all of about a hundred (legal) codes received by the Messenger, and then he expounded his views on public key cryptography. It was at this time, one of Poe's readers, Mr. WB Tyler, submitted the two cryptographs shown on this page.Poe never published the solutions cryptographs Tyler. This fact alone makes them interesting - to 100-plus cryptographs submitted by his readers, these are the only two not resolved. Poe claimed that they do not have the time to develop a solution, but published them in Graham for his readers to decipher. But the most interesting aspect of these cryptographs is the possibility that they were not written by WB Tyler, but the Poe. (Sova, 15-29)

Between December 1839 and May 1840, Poe appears to have explained all of the ciphers submitted to Alexander's. He himself asserted that "out of, possibly, one century ciphers entirely obtained, there was only one which we did not directly do well ...