{"id":300,"date":"2021-12-02T15:45:34","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/digitalmethodsforthehumanities\/?page_id=300"},"modified":"2021-12-15T16:35:14","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T21:35:14","slug":"the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue-edgar-allan-poe","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/digitalmethodsforthehumanities\/digital-editions\/the-murders-in-the-rue-morgue-edgar-allan-poe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Murders in the Rue Morgue – Edgar Allan Poe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Illustration by Daniel Vierge of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 1870 (public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edgar Allan Poe (born 1809 – died 1849) is best known for his poetry and tales of supernatural horror. Who among us hasn\u2019t read poem \u201cThe Raven\u201d or encountered a\u00a0 classic horror stories like the \u201cThe Tell-Tale Heart\u201d or \u201cThe Fall of the House of Usher\u201d? But Poe\u2019s influence was felt far beyond poetry and gothic horror. With \u201cThe Murders in the Rue Morgue,\u201d he created an entirely new literary genre \u2013 the detective story \u2013 introducing the world to what are now common elements of detective fiction – a brilliant, eccentric detective and his admiring sidekick; murder victims discovered in a locked room; the arrest of the wrong person; and an ingenious solution to a seemingly impossible crime.<\/p>\n

Despite the popularity of \u201cThe Murders in the Rue Morgue,\u201d Poe wrote just two more detective stories (\u201cThe Mystery of Marie Roget,\u201d and \u201cThe Purloined Letter\u201d) before his death. But these, and the characters Poe created, inspired many others, including the most famous of all detectives\u2013 Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle acknowledged this debt in his first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet<\/em> (1888), <\/em>when Watson says Holmes \u201cremind(s) me of Edgar Allen Poe\u2019s Dupin.\u201d While Poe has been a continuing source of inspiration to writers of poetry, horror and the supernatural, these genres have many other sources. In contrast, all detective stories and police procedurals have Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s C. Auguste Dupin as their source, and this digital edition is designed to introduce the general public to Poe’s first detective story and its influence on all detection fiction that followed.<\/p>\n

Annotation of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n