Puzzling Over Poe.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: 160-year-old puzzle attributed to Edgar Allan Poe - Brief Article

This scramble of symbols, attributed by Edgar Allan Poe to one "W.B. Tyler" and offered to the readers of Graham's Magazine in 1841, remained impenetrable for 160 years. Last year, however, it was posted on the Web by Poe scholar Shawn Rosenheim and was soon cracked by a software engineer in Canada (who won a $2,500 prize for his effort). But for some, the answer is a greater mystery than was the puzzle. Perhaps they are searching for solution in the absence of mystery.

Poe specialists believe that "Tyler" is really Poe, and some have hoped that the puzzle would yield a deep message from the author, or at least an insight into the man. What the code says, they think, is just schlock. "It was early spring," the passage begins, "warm and sultry glowed the afternoon." It goes on to describe a stiff scene of lovers at a window. "Why pick this...