It is an imaginary story, but none the less interesting.
A murder was committed in Paris by an orang-outang, which had climbed
in at a window and then closed the window behind it. The police could
find no clew; but the hero of Poe's story follows the facts out by a
number of clever observations of small facts.

"The Gold-Bug" seems to have been written in 1842 for Poe's projected
magazine, _The Stylus_. F.O.C. Darley, the well-known artist, was to
draw pictures for it at seven dollars each. Poe himself took to him
the manuscript of "The Gold-Bug" and that of "The Black Cat."

As this magazine was never published, the story of "The Gold-Bug" was
sent to Graham some time after Poe had left him; but he did not like
it, and made some criticisms upon it. Poe got it back from Graham in
order to submit it for a prize of $100 offered by _The Dollar
Newspaper_. It won the prize, and became Poe's most popular story.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI

HOW "THE RAVEN" WAS WRITTEN

"The Raven" was published in New York just two years before Mrs. Poe
died; it instantly made its author famous, although it brought him
little or no money. It is said that he was paid only ten dollars for
the poem; but as soon as it appeared it was the talk of the
nation,--being copied into almost every newspaper. Poe had written
and published many other poems, but none of them had attracted much
attention.

We have spoken of Poe as a story-writer, and now in "The Raven" we see
him a great poet.

It is not unusual to think of poetry as the work of inspiration or
genius; but how it is written, nobody knows. Poe maintained that
literary art is something that can be studied and learned. To
illustrate this he told how he wrote "The Raven." Some people
considered this a sort of joke; but it was not. When Poe began to
write, his work was not at all good; as years went on, he learned by
patient practice to write well. It was more than anything else this
long course of training that made him so great.

The essay in which he tells how he wrote "The Raven," begins by saying
that when he thought of writing it he decided that it must not be too
long nor too short. It must be short enough so that one could read it
through at a sitting; but also it must be long enough to express fully
the idea which he had in mind.

Then, it must be beautiful. All true poetry is about beauty. It
doesn't teach anything useful, or analyze anythin