 Poe would have known London from the time he spent there as a boy with his foster family, the Allans, although he may have relied on the writings of Charles Dickens for details of London's streets.In this story and others, Poe associates modern cities with the growth of impersonal crime.The story was first published simultaneously in the December 1840 issues of "Atkinson's Casket" and "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine".