The Mystery of Marie Roget

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The Mystery of Marie Roget
Author Edgar Allan Poe
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Snowden's Ladies' Companion
Publication date 1842

"The Mystery of Marie Roget", often subtitled A Sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe written in 1842. This is the first murder mystery based on the details of a real crime.[1] It first appeared in Snowden's Ladies' Companion in three installments, November and December 1842 and February 1843.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

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Poe's detective character C. Auguste Dupin and his sidekick the unnamed narrator undertake the unsolved murder of Marie Roget in Paris. The body of Roget, a perfume shop employee, is found in the Seine River and the media take a keen interest in the mystery. Dupin remarks that the newspapers "create a sensation... [rather] than to further the cause of truth." Even so, he uses the newspaper reports to get into the mind of the murderer.

Dupin uses his skills of ratiocination to determine that a single murderer was involved who dragged her by the cloth belt around her waist before dumping her body off a boat into the river. Finding the boat, Dupin suggests, will lead the police to the murderer.

[edit] Origins

The narrative is based upon the actual murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers.[2] Rogers was presumably born in Lyme, Connecticut in 1820, though her birth records have not survived.[3] She disappeared on October 4, 1838, in New York City and became known as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl". Only a few days later the newspapers announced her return. It was said she had eloped with a naval officer. Three years later, on July 25, 1841, she disappeared again. Her body was found floating in the Hudson River on July 28 in Hoboken, New Jersey.[4] The details surrounding the case suggested she was murdered. The death of this well-known girl received national attention for weeks. Months later, the inquest still ongoing, her fiancee was found dead, an act of suicide. By his side, a remorseful note and an empty bottle of poison were found.

Writing about Rogers as a sequel to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", Poe tried to solve the aforementioned enigma by creating a murder mystery. As Poe wrote in a letter: "under the pretense of showing how Dupin... unravelled the mystery of Marie's assassination, I, in fact, enter into a very rigorous analysis of the real tragedy in New York".[5] He situated the narrative in Paris using the details of the original tragedy. Although there was intense media interest and immortalizing of a sort by Poe, the crime remains one of the most puzzling unsolved murders of New York City.

Fictionalizing actual events, especially murder, was common in this period in American literature. Poe had previously fictionalized the so-called Beauchamp-Sharp Tragedy in his only play, Politian, which was left uncompleted in 1835.[6] The sensational murder story was also fictionalized by several other writers including William Gilmore Simms and Thomas Holley Chivers.[7] "The Mystery of Marie Roget", however, was likely the first real-life crime turned into a detective story.[8]

[edit] Critical response

Of Poe's three tales of ratiocination, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" is generally considered the least successful. A modern critic wrote:

It might better be called an essay than a story. As an essay, it is an able if tedious exercise in reasoning. As a story, it scarcely exists. It has no life-blood. The characters neither move nor speak... Only a professional student of analytics or an inveterate devotee of criminology can read it with any degree of unfeigned interest."[9]

[edit] Publication history

Poe presented "The Mystery of Marie Roget" by telling editors he had solved the Mary Rogers murder at a time when most readers would know the details of that event.[10] The first part of the serialized story appeared in Snowden's Ladies' Companion in November of 1842, followed by the second part in December. An article published in the November 26, 1842, issue of the New York Tribune caused Poe to delay publication of the third installment. The newspaper reported new evidence that suggested that Rogers, the real-life victim, may have died from a botched abortion attempt, referred to as a "premature delivery."[11] He made minor changes in his story to make a similar suggestion. A full reprint of the story in 1845 included 15 small changes to suggest he had known this true cause from the start.[12]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sova, 164
  2. ^ Silverman, 205
  3. ^ Stashower, 20
  4. ^ Thomas & Jackson, 336–337
  5. ^ Rosenheim, 68–69
  6. ^ Sova, 197
  7. ^ Whited, Stephen R. (2002). "Kentucky Tragedy", in Joseph M. Flora and Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan: The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Associate Editor: Todd W. Taylor, LSU Press, p. 404–405. ISBN 0807126926. Retrieved on 2008-01-24. 
  8. ^ Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, (Introduction and notes by John S. Wiley), Wordsworth Editions, 1993: 90
  9. ^ Haycraft, Howard. Murder for Pleasure: The Life and Times of the Detective Story. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941: 16–17.
  10. ^ Leverenz, David. "Spanking the Master: Mind-Body Crossings in Poe's Sensationalism," as collected in A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2001. p. 109. ISBN 0195121593
  11. ^ Sova, 165
  12. ^ Walsh, John Evangelist. Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances behind "The Mystery of Marie Roget". Rutgers University Press, 1968. p. 69

[edit] Sources

  • Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy, Paperback ed., New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0815410387. 
  • Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1941). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.. ISBN 0801857309. 
  • Rosenheim, Shawn James (1997). The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801853326. 
  • Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance, Paperback ed., New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060923318. 
  • Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z, Paperback ed., New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 081604161X. 
  • Stashower, Daniel (2006). The Beautiful Cigar Girl. New York: PenguinBooks. ISBN 052594981X. 
  • Thomas, Dwight & David K. Jackson (1987). The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849. New York: G. K. Hall & Co. ISBN 0783814011. 

[edit] External links

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Works of Edgar Allan Poe