Text: Anonymous, “[Comment on Willis about ‘The Gold Bug,’],” Republican Banner (Nashville, TN), vol. XXXII, no. 126, October 24, 1845, p. 1, col. 7

[page 1, column 7, continued:]

☞ N. P Willis writes that the collection of tales by Mr. E. A. Poe, recently republished in England, is entirely neglected for the present, in consequence of the use of a single Americanism. The following is his explanation of the circumstance:

The word bug, which with us, may mean an may honorable insect, as well as an unclean one, is hardly nameable in England to ears polite. The first story opened to, in Mr. Poe's book, is “the Golden Bug.” and the publisher informs me that his English brethren of the craft turn their backs upon it for this disqualification only. The work is too fall of genius to be kept finally from English admiration, but a word on the first page, which makes publishers shut the book without looking farther, will retard its departure from the shelf.