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How Edgar Allen Poe’s Short Story Helped Inspire The Popular Game Of Scrabble
The Gold Bug was an exciting story about treasure, which also included a word cipher that helped spawn a popular game a century later
Modern society is very much a game-oriented population. Specifically, board games. Digging into a good game is something countless people enjoy to unwind or spend time with friends and family. One of the most popular, which has been around for 85 years, is Scrabble. With an objective of strategic word formation, it has drawn a loyal following who aspire to accumulate the highest scores possible. Although it first came out in the 1930s, its heritage actually dates back nearly a century before that when beloved writer Edgar Allen Poe published a short story that ended up becoming a key inspiration years later for the genesis of the entertaining classic.
Poe grew up in Boston before ultimately moving to Baltimore where he found middling success as a writer. Although his portfolio is now widely known and appreciated, including having influenced numerous writers, it did not give him great recognition or make him a rich man during his life. Still, he persisted and accumulated quite a collection of work before his early death at the age of 40 in 1849. Some of his well-known…
