Murders in the Rue Morgue

The Blueprint for Today’s Detective Mysteries

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor, and literary critic.

In honor of the author’s birthday, here is a republication of Mystery’s History Episode Two, which celebrates Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue, published in 1841 and widely heralded as the first modern detective story.

Enjoy!

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.