Customer Reviews

The Murders In The Rue Morgue

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've always been a fan of Edgar Allen Poe, but it wasn't until I heard David Case's narration of "The Raven" in this collection that I felt I really understood the depth of emotion and the strength of this poem. Case somehow manages to capture the narrator's true essence of torment and despair that, in my opinion, is unequal in any other audio version I have yet to come across. I very much enjoyed the other stories in the collection as well; particularly the "Murders in the Rue Morgue." If you have never heard his version of "The Raven," I highly recommend it!

Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his poetry ("Quoth the raven...") and his tales of the macabre. But he has a lesser-known claim to fame -- the prototypical detective stories, predating Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

Though only three stories about C. Auguste Dupin were written, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" compiles all three of them, with their baffling answers and armchair detection. These weren't the first detective tales, but they set the mold for the mysteries that followed -- strange, atmospheric, and crawling with elaborate clues and odd logical deductions.

We're introduced to Dupin through his pal/roommate, in "Murders in the Rue Morgue." He's impoverished but of an old family, and lives in a crumbling, gothic mansion full of his books. But his mind is sharper than anyone around him, based on the logical process of "ratiocination."

In this mystery, Dupin learns of a bizarre mystery, where an apartment was found almost destroyed but nothing was stolen. An old lady is found outside with her head hacked off with a razor, and her daughter is found throttled and stuffed upside-down in a chimney, with locks of her hair pulled out. No motive, and no suspects. The police are baffled -- but Dupin isn't.

Based on a real crime, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" opens with the death of a popular young woman, who is later found floating in the river. By reading different newspaper reports, Dupin chronicles the peculiarities of the crime, and debunks the many assumptions that were made about the crime -- how many assailants, where, when, and so on.

"The Purloined Letter" has a somewhat less gruesome crime. The prefect of police is meeting with Dupin, with a very important matter to discuss -- a compromising letter of the Queen's was stolen in front of her eyes, and now the Minister is blackmailing her with it. The police have searched the Minister's apartment from top to bottom, but there's no sign of the letter. Only Dupin knows where to find it.

These stories are are not only the undervalued roots of modern detective fiction, but staggeringly good stories as well. Poe -- who reportedly made Dupin the sort of logical, cool person he wanted to be -- crammed a whole novel's worth of detecting into each short story, and made even the weirdest answers (the ending of the first story is likely to make you do a double-take and mumble, "What the...?") seem plausible.

Unlike Poe's other works, these are made up mostly of deduction and dialogue, though Poe does get in some wonderful lines about the shared mansion ("... in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion"). And while the dialogue seems rather dry at first, as it unfolds, the intricacies of each bizarre plot become clear.

You could say that the one flaw of these stories is that they don't offer much insight into the characters. We don't know much about Dupin, except that he's an impoverished noble with a vast collection of books and a brain second to none. But the stories are really about Dupin's logical deductions rather than the character himself, and how any baffling case could be solved if you just had enough clues and a clear head.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" are a remarkable work of detective fiction, and are among Poe's best -- and most underrated -- works of fiction. Definitely a must-read.

This is an unusual selection of assorted Poe works, including the Murder in the Rue Morgue, advertised as the first modern detective story, a few short stories, and the famous poem. Poe's detective is like the hundreds that followed him, if indeed he really is the first in the chain. Classic scenario, he lives with a scribe/assistant in a run-down Paris flat, has no occupation except gentleman, solves crimes that the local constabulary can not get a beat on. In this volume, we see the first two cases, a gruesome murder that could not have been the work of human hands, and a tale of a missing document that needs to be located.

Then the editors change gears and provide us with a selection of unrelated short stories. None are especially good, but the best of the bunch is a short lesson in how to survive a hurricane at sea. The protagonist makes it home safely, albeit without his stubborn brother and with his jet black mane turned white.

For good measure, there is a copy of the famous poem, The Raven, tossed into the mix here also. I did the audio version, and it is probably better to have the poem read aloud. Dont know if Ray Lewis has heard this yet or not.

In the Murders in the Rue Morgue we are introduced to the character of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, a Parisian gentleman with a sharpened mind that allows him to deduce information unavailable to the casual observer. When a pair of ghastly murders are committed in the Rue Morgue, Dupin applies his intellect and powers of observation to solve the seemingly inexplicable deaths.

First published in 1841, this book marks the very beginning of the mystery genre. That's right, 46 years before Sherlock Holmes began his career, M. Dupin was solving crimes that left the police baffled! Overall, I found this book to be very interesting - interesting for its historical value and interesting to read. I really enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it!

Poe is rightly acknowledged as the granddaddy of detective fiction and collected here is the proof. In these stories he gave us the basic devices of an entire genre: the genius detective and his sidekick, the locked room mystery, cyphers, royal spies, and the rigorous logic of arm-chair detection. However, the problem with pioneering a genre is that, forever after, your pioneering work is going to look rather amateurish. And this, unfortunately, is the case with Poe: his Auguste Dupin stories may well have given birth to modern detective fiction, but alongside the works they inspired they are little more than historically interesting artifacts - and ultimately rather dull ('The Murders in the Rue Morgue' excepted). It is simply not possible for us to experience these stories today with anything like the freshness they would have had for their original readers. So if you're looking for really great stories, look elsewhere. But if, on the other hand, you're seeking the historical origins of detective fiction, then your mystery has just been solved.

It was a breathe taking story which shows that even the most common person is capeable of discovering the truth behind a mysterious case.The story was the best I've read in years and should be one of the most populare stories Poe has ever writen.Not only does he leave the person reading the book amaized but, he leaves them terrified about the horrible things that life has to offer us.It just comes to show you never under estimate the power of the beast you don't of what might come.And by reading my reveiw you'll know that Poe has left another person amaised by what can happen to one when they least expect it .

A Horror Fiction Story

Dupin deduces something orange.


4 out of 5

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is the short story I read, but it was not from this edition. I have the Barnes & Noble Penguin 60s Classics edition, which contains only this story. While short, this story clearly has a climax, resolution, and all other fundamentals that would be expected within a novel. The two main characters are clearly fashioned like Sherlock Holmes and his deductive investigating methods (Dupin) and his at times duped companion Watson (the unnamed narrator at times). While I found the first 6 pages humdrum, since it only explained the analytical method of thinking (Dupin's way of thinking), and then Dupin's tedious soliloquies about how the murder may have been committed rather drably, the actual explanation of the crime is what caught my attention. I did expect more morbid images, since this is, in fact, Poe. An entertaining short story. I recommend.