B2 · 5 minutes · Short stories

The Purloined Letter

The Paris police cannot find a stolen letter, so they ask the clever detective Dupin for help. A story by Edgar Allan Poe, adapted for learners.

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What you’ll practise

Follow a description of a careful search.

Words to know

purloined: Stolen.
drawer: A box that slides in and out of a desk or cupboard.
case: A crime or problem that police try to solve.

Words at this lesson’s level (B2)

At B2, you probably know about 100% of the words in this lesson.

The other words of this lesson are at B2 or below.

Word levels from the CEFR-J Wordlist 1.5 (Yukio Tono, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies); words not in it count as above B2. Your level is the one you chose in the level guide, otherwise the lesson’s.

Source

“The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe, adapted for VOA Learning English American Stories. Public domain.

View the source · Licence terms

Five sentences selected from the opening and cut into clips. Explanations and vocabulary are original.

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