Abstract
Read, Daniel (2020) The Five Games of Mr Edgar Allan Poe: A study of strategic thought in “The Purloined Letter” Rationality and Society 32(4): 369–401.
This article had some errors in the published version in the following paragraph, on page 377. The online version of this article has now been corrected. The corrected paragraph is as shown below:
The payoffs are shown at the end of the tree, with the blackmailer’s (Minister’s) payoffs first, so that (for instance) the payoff “d, z” represents a payoff of d to the blackmailer and z to the victim (the Queen). The payoffs to the Queen are ordered as: z > y > x > w. The Queen is assumed to prefer not to submit to blackmail than to submit, and not to be exposed than to be exposed. We already know she has submitted rather than face exposure, demonstrating that for her being exposed must be worse than submitting (leading to y > x). Submitting and being exposed therefore is the worst outcome for the Queen (w), followed by not submitting and being exposed (x), submitting and not being exposed (y), and not submitting and not being exposed (z).