Did you know that Edgar Allen Poe considered himself not just an accomplished writer but THE BEST CRYPTOGRAPHER EVAR??? He loved to dedicate his genius to solving ciphers, puns, riddles, you name it, and he was known to boast that “nothing can be written which, with time, I cannot decipher.” Oh, and he also liked to remind people that “Edgar Poe” is an anagram for “a God Peer.” Nice.

In 1841, Poe challenged readers of Graham’s Magazine, where he was an editor, to solve a devilishly difficult puzzle a friend had sent him. He promised to post the answer in the next month’s issue, but flaked (could it be that he couldn’t solve the puzzle himself??). Today, The New Yorker is giving readers the chance to match wits with the self-declared puzzle master by offering that same puzzle. Read the text full of jumbled letters and numbers, and with the help of a few cryptic clues, find out for yourself if Poe was nearly as brilliant as he thought he was. [The New Yorker]