Volume 17 , Issue 16

1870 - 1st installment of Poe's Short Story "The Gold-Bug"

It was in the Orangeburg News, page 2, dated Saturday Morning, 26 March 1870, that we found Edgar A. Poe's published piece titled, "The Goldbug."

"What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
"He hath been bitten by the Trantula. All in the Wrong."

Was "The Goldbug" a required reading in your high school days? What was the "Goldbug?" What did it represent?

It appears the character in "The Goldbug," Legrand, was a well educated man, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He lived on Sullivan's Island near Charleston, South Carolina. Legrand had many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or etymological specimens. His collection the etymological specimens might have been envied by a Swammerdam.

In Legrand's excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of the family fortune, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." Legrand lived on Sullivan's Island where winters were seldom very severe, and the Fall of the year it was a rare event when a fire was considered necessary.

It was on a cold October night, Legrand found a whole tribe of "scaraboei."

[This is not a part of "The Goldbug," but for your information the dictionary describes the Scarabaeus sacer as a species of dung beetle belonging to the family Scarabaeidae. The Egyptians also observed young beetles emerging from the ball of dung, from which they mistakenly inferred that the female beetle was able to reproduce without needing a male. From this, they drew parallels with their god Atum, who also begat children alone. In Egyptian mythology, Atum was an important deity. Alum had been interpreted as being the "complete one" and also the finisher of the world, which her returns to watery chaos at the end of the creative cycle. As creator he was seen as the underlying substance of the world, the deities and all things being made of his flesh or alternatively being his ka.]

Getting back to "The Goldbug"

The bug was a brilliant gold color, about the size of a large hickory nut, with two jet black spots near one extremity of the back, and another somewhat longer, at the other. Legrand drew a picture of the bug, which resembled a death's-head (skull) with small antennae.

The narrator (friend) in the story says the image looks like a skull. Legrand is insulted, crumbles and locks the drawing in a drawer, to the narrator's confusion. Uncomfortable, the narrator leaves Legrand and returns home to Charleston.

A month after Legrand found the bug a weird of mind set in with Legrand. Did Legrand get bit by the gold beetle, making him sick? Legrand would dream and talk about gold in his sleep. Is this the "gold-fever" we sometimes heard about during the Gold Rush era?

Note from Legrand and it was as follows:

"My Dear ____
"Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you have not been so foolish as to take offense at any little brusquerie of mine; but no, that is improbable.

"Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it all.

"I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by this well meant attentions. Would you believe it? -- he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, souls, among the hills on the main land. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.

"I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met. If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you tonight, upon business of importance. I sure you that it is of the highest importance.

Ever yours, William Legrand."

Legrand's friend returned with Legrand's negro to the Island where we find Legrand waiting in easier expectation. Legrand grasped his friend hand with a nervous empressement which alarmed his friend and strengthened the suspicion he already entertained. Legrand's countenance was pale, ghastliness, and his deepest eyes glared with unnatural lustre.

Legrand's friend asked if he had obtained the scaraboerus from Lieutenant G.

Legrand replied that he had gotten it from Lt. G the next morning, and nothing should tempt him to part with that scaraboeus. Legrand was supposing the bug to be of real gold. Expressing to his friend that the bug was to make his fortune. To reinstate Legrand in his family possessions.

Legrand showed the Gold bug to his friend. A great prize in a scientific point of view. Two round black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy with all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all things into consideration, his friend could hardly blame the negro for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand's concordance with that opinion, his friend could not, for the life of him, tell.

Legrand asks his friend to join him and his negro to go on digging expedition that same afternoon, returning next morning. But his friend refused because he thought Legrand sick. But with a heavy heart his friend did accompanied Legrand, Jupiter (the negro) and the dog. The negro carried the scythe and spades. The friend had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand was content with the scaraboeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whipcord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjuror, as he went.

That is where the first printing of Poe's short story ended. The second printing to be continued the following week.
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