The Gold Bug is perhaps one of Edgar Allan Poe's most notable works, and perhaps one of the most widely read within his lifetime. It is also his most lucrative, seeing that he received $100.00 in prize money for the story. Poe entered this story into a writing contest for the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper and won first place. The Gold Bug was published in two installments, starting June 21st, 1843. Other newspapers quickly picked up the story and published it as well. According to Poe, by 1844 the story had been circulated over 300,000 times, making this his most read publication.
The setting is the South Carolina coast, Sullivan's Island to be exact, and revolves around buried pirate treasure. It incorporates a host of popular topics of the day into the storyline, treasure, cryptograms and codes, the beginnings of deductive or detective story plot, slavery...
There is a bit of a real-life mirror to the story...Oak Island. I don't know if Poe was aware of what would become the money-pit, but there are similarities. Oak island supposedly held pirate treasure and digging commenced in the early 1790's. While digging, a cryptographic carved stone was found, and supposedly deciphered. For over 200 years many have contributed to Oak Island's dig, but no secrets, or treasure has ever been found...
The Gold Bug as originally published in its first edition form is not available as a facsimile scan. The Philadelphia Dollar newspaper would be the true first, followed by The Philadelphia Saturday Courier publishing the story over three editions, June 24th, July 1st and 8th. You can read it digitally...
The Gold Bug as published in The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper
In book form the first edition would be Tales, first published in 1845...