The Murders in the Rue Morgue

By Edgar Allan Poe

The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.

The author leads us to investigate murders with a surprise ending.


About Edgar Allan Poe.

Born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe's tales of mystery and horror initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in national literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Editora Dracaena
• Release date: Apr 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9788582180709

Edgar Allan Poe

New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Department of Economics. He has also held a visiting professorship at MIT’s Media Lab. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s Marketplace. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and two children.

Book preview

Summary

Summary

Part 01

Part 02.

Part 03

Part 04

Part 05

Part 06

Part 07

Part 08

Part 09

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 01

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. 

We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. 

He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension praeternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.

The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. 

A chess-player, for example, does the one, without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a some-what peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex, is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. 

The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. 

The possible moves being not only manifold, but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten, it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. 

To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. 

Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

Whist has long been known for its influence upon what is termed the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. 

The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies a capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. 

When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold, but multiform, and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to

Reviews for The Murders in the Rue Morgue

[marsap_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of Poe’s detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin. These stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. The most famous is the Murder on the Rue Morgue—basically a locked roomed murder mystery. Dupin can extrapolate specific conclusions about people based on the smallest piece of evidence, like a ribbon. Though there are similarities between Sherlock Holmes and Dupin--Dupin isn't a know-it-all. He never claims to have facts--he makes it very clear he's guessing, and his guesses just happen to be correct most of the time. The other two stories of this series, Mystery of Marie Rogêt and The Purloined Letter, both feature Dupin and additional mysteries—though only the Purloined Letter matches the enjoyment of the Rue Morgue. Not my favorite Poe stories—but still enjoyable. 3 ½ out of 5 stars.

[sayakaa_4 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

it was sad story. i did not like the ending.

[doskoipanda · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poe's work itself is 5 stars, no question. But this edition would benefit from some footnotes/annotations for some of the more obscure things and the French phrases, rather than the additional material and the "reader's circle" questions/discussions, particularly for someone not familiar with the early 1800s.

[orange_suspense · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Murders in the Rue MorgueCamille L’Espanaye’s face is mutilated and her body is shoved and squeezed up into the chimney and her mother lies beaten black and blue, headless and with most of her bones crushed on the floor. The doors and windows are locked from the inside and there is no clue who has done these brutal murders.It’s for Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin to analyse all the facts given by the Gazette des Tribunaux (including the statements from the witnesses) and a short visist to the murder scene itself to deduct what must have happened and to solve this highly unusual crime.I was surprised by the first of the three short stories including Dupin for it really is one of the first examples of the detective fiction genre. Even though some deductions seem a bit far fetched, the skills of Poe constructing the plot and Dupin deducting from the facts are great and highly entertaining. With the Dupin tales read you will discover more than one similarity between the great detectives that followed the lead of Poe’s eccentric character and its methods. I’m very curious if the other two novels are equally good.The Mystery of Marie RogêtThe second tale of Poe’s Dupin, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, has its roots in the the real murder of Mary Rogers in New York back in the time. As far as I know the murder of Mary Rogers is still unsolved and so Poe’s narrative is first of all fiction, but also investigates the real crime (translocated to Paris). And coming to the conclusions Dupin draws, it seems highly possible that Poe/Dupin wasn’t so wrong at all.In comparison to the first novel, the character of Dupin is stripped down to the bare essentials of analysing and deducting. It seems that Dupin is some sort of ghost that gives lenghthy interpretations of newspaper articles and minute analysis of the possible context of the crime. I also had the feeling that some passages could have been a bit shorter for they are really stretched, maybe uneccessaryso (e.g. the analysis of bodies thrown into water). On the other hand those passages give the real Dupin and let you participate in his train of thought.I don’t know if I liked The Muders in the Rue Morgue a bit better concerning the overall plot, but The Mystery of Marie Rogêt is clearly more analytical and therefore an example of pure detective work (even though more in the style of Poirot than Holmes) which will finally become on of the cornerstones of the detective fiction genre.The Purloined Letter“The Purloined Letter Approach” a.k.a. “Hiding in plain view” is a method of hiding things named after the thrid and final Dupin tale. The lifeless charcter of Dupin from The Myster of Marie Rogêt was drawn using a bit more color this time. Dupin has to find out where an important document is concealed that is used for blackmailing. The police, having searched everything everywhere, is clueless of its whereabouts and again Dupin has to use his deducing mind to find the answer.Even if the atmosphere of the story is really good with Dupin and the narrator sitting in Dupin’s rooms endlessly smoking their pipes and the good idea of hiding the document in plain sight (which was new then), I think The Purloined Letter is more an example to show the differences between police work and deduction than a entertaining story. I don’t think it is bad, not at all, but Poe’s competitor is he himself and The Mysster of Marie Rogêt and The Murders in the Rue Morgue were more entertaining as The Purloined Letter. But as a piece of high importance for the developing of the detective fiction genre nobody can seriously outstrip the relevance of Dupin’s third case.This collection of the three Dupin tales comes with a short introduction and text excerpts from the predecessors of Dupin himself (being Voltair’s Zadig, Vicocq’s Vicocq and Leggett’s Buckhorn). I think this little book is really worth owning for it gives three outstandingly interesting Poe texts and with the excerpts a nice guide for further reading.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Said to be the birth of the detective genre, and consequently, an inspiration for many fictional detectives, most notably, of course, being Sherlock Holmes, it was impossible to pass this slim volume up when I spied it in the used books section. I had never heard of it before, despite having read quite a few Poe stories when I was young.

The first story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," could have almost been a Holmes story. The entirely self-confident Dupin sets a trap for one of the persons of interest, smugly reviewing his reasoning to his associate as he waits for the knock on the door (to what you could almost imagine being 221B Baker Street, were it in London, not Paris.) There was a bit where I was concerned that Poe was painting orangutans as casually violent, but the story pulled back from that.

The second story, "The Mystery of Marie Roget," however, was kind of unsufferable. It just ground on and on, and I kept thinking, "Even Holmes would be tired of listening to himself by now!" Footnotes allude to the story being inspired by a real-life mystery, and that it appears Poe basically solved it ahead of everyone, despite not ever visiting the scene of the crime? I don't know, it was confusing. So maybe he was showing off, or trying to convince real-life authorities, I don't know. What I do know is that it got a bit tedious and I had to slog through it.

The third story, "Purloined Letter" was delightful again. It seemed to mirror quite closely the one episode of Downton Abbey I have ever seen in my life. I wonder if it was inspired directly?

So, sort of hit and miss. But definitely interesting!

[lgandt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was sooooo not like any film I have ever seen of the same title. I loved this and I hated every film I ever saw of it. As I have said on more than one occasion, how did they get those movies out of this story?

[cbl_tn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This compilation includes Poe's three Auguste Dupin stories rounded off with a non-Dupin story involving a mysterious murder. Even though I'm pretty sure I hadn't previously read any of the stories, I was familiar with the plots of the Dupin stories from adaptations, cultural references, etc.Once you know the solution of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, it's hard to forget it as you read/listen. Dupin's endless description of his reasoning process is then more tedious than suspenseful. “The Mystery of Marie Roget” is even worse. After listening to an hour's worth of Dupin's inferences about the case, I thought I had missed his solution. I found a copy online to check what I'd missed and discovered I hadn't missed anything. The story (based on a real-life unsolved murder) stops abruptly without reaching a satisfactory conclusion.“The Purloined Letter” is the most successful of the three Dupin stories. It's certainly the shortest, and thus it doesn't suffer as much from Dupin's long-winded monologues. The plot is both simple and clever. I also enjoyed “Thou Art the Man”, a non-Dupin story about the mysterious disappearance and death of a wealthy man that ends with an interesting twist.I couldn't help comparing Dupin with Sherlock Holmes since their characters are so similar. I think the Holmes stories work better because of Dr. Watson. Neither Dupin nor Holmes are particularly personable, but Watson provides readers with a sympathetic character.

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this as part of my BA in English.With Poe's reputation, I felt disappointed with this, though parts did impress me. The concept is clever, but too much rambling prose prevented me from really liking this.