C. Auguste Dupin #1

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

... Show More
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination". Similar works predate Poe's stories, including Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819) by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Zadig (1748) by Voltaire.

C. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mysterious brutal murder of two women. Numerous witnesses heard a suspect, though no one agrees on what language was spoken. At the murder scene, Dupin finds a hair that does not appear to be human.

As the first true detective in fiction, the Dupin character established many literary devices which would be used in future fictional detectives including Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Many later characters, for example, follow Poe's model of the brilliant detective, his personal friend who serves as narrator, and the final revelation being presented before the reasoning that leads up to it. Dupin himself reappears in "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter".

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 1,1841

Places
paris

This edition

Format
64 pages, Paperback
Published
November 4, 2004 by Oxford University Press
ISBN
9780194229920
ASIN
0194229920
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • C. Auguste Dupin

    C. Auguste Dupin

    The first private detective in fictional literature. He appears in 3 stories by Poe - a young man who has a small inheritance but he still lives on the edge of poverty. He is quite learned and surrounds himself with books....

  • the Narrator (the three Dupin stories)

    The Narrator (the Three Dupin Stories)

    He is a friend of Dupin and narrates the three stories about him. Never named. In "Murders .." we learn that he meets Dupin at a library. They become friends and he takes a room at Dupins old and dilapidated family mansion.more...

  • Chantilly

    Chantilly

    Hes a former cobbler who took up the theatre with limited success.more...

  • Madame L' Espanaye

    Madame L Espanaye

    An elderly woman who lives on the 4th floor of a house in the Rue Morgue with her daughter. They are reasonably well off, although by what means, people are uncertain....

  • Mlle. Camille L' Espanaye

    Mlle. Camille L Espanaye

    She lives with her mother in a house in the Rue Morgue....

  • Pauline Dubourg (Murders in the Rue Morgue)

    Pauline Dubourg (murders In The Rue Morgue)

    A laundress who has taken in the laundry for the two L Espanaye women for three years.more...

About the author

... Show More
The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer's oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America's first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe's reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe's stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author's name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe's sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls' school. Within three years of Poe's birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe's siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe's handwriting on the backs of Allan's ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Community Reviews

Rating(0 / 5.0, 0 votes)
5 stars
(0%)
4 stars
(0%)
3 stars
(0%)
2 stars
(0%)
1 stars
(0%)
0 reviews All reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.