Piracki kodeks Poego
The Pirate Code of Poe

Summary/Abstract: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Gold Bug’ broke the bank in a literary contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, earning the author the top prize of $100. Soon, however, allegations emerged that the writer had in fact stolen the idea from 13-year-old Miss Sherburne... At the same time, Poe vigorously tracked down the literary thefts of other poets and writers, including those whose ideas, and even entire stories, he himself pilfered. The history of double appropriation contained in ‘The Gold Bug’ can be used to describe the ambiguous role of the pirate-Poe in an era in which the problem of authorship and ownership, despite the Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution, is still subject to a code of power, sealed with an oath taken on crossed pistols.

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