Introducing Mystery’s History

Interesting Facts Behind Intriguing Stories

View 001 Mystery’s History: Introduction. Scroll down to view 002 Mystery’s History: Murders in the Rue Morgue

Transcript:

Welcome to this series of short videos I call Mystery’s History, Interesting Facts Behind Intriguing Stories. I’m Donald Jay.

Now, I write mystery stories, so I also read mysteries and study the mystery genre.  As I do, I’m finding some of the most interesting stories and fun facts behind the mysteries that we all know and love and the genre itself that I’d never heard of before, and I thought you might find interesting.

So, join me as I explore the Mystery genre in this series of very short videos, I like to call Mystery’s History.

Until next time, I’m Donald Jay

View 002 Mystery’s History: Murders in the Rue Morgue

Transcript:

Welcome to Mysteries History, Interesting Facts Behind Intriguing Stories.

In this episode, we’re traveling back to 1841 in search of the first modern detective story.

Now, mystery stories have been around for centuries but many consider Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue to be the blueprint, if you will, for what we now know today as a detective mystery.

Published in 1841, Poe first used a number of tropes that have been used by mystery writers since and are still used today.

Poe used an amateur sleuth in C. August Dupin who undertakes the investigation for intellectual stimulation.

Poe’s story is narrated by the main character’s friend, much like Holmes’s Watson or Poirot’s Hastings.

Dupin employs what Poe calls “ratiocination,” which seems to be the forerunner of Holmes’s and others’ deductive reasoning.

Dupin employs the grand reveal, where he names the murderer before revealing the logic behind the accusation.

And the wrong man is even arrested as a red herring, which Poe later denied.

If you’re really into comparisons, Dupin even smokes a pipe, ala Gideon Fell or, once again, our friend Sherlock Holmes.

Finally, Murders in the Rue Morgue was the first “locked-room mystery,” my favorite mystery sub-genre.

So, if you want to start at the beginning, enjoy reading Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue.

For Mystery’s History, until next time, I’m Donald Jay.