The Murders in the Rue Morgue. We feel a little sorry for Edgar Allan Poe. Sure, he's got a good gig, what with having a Simpsons Halloween Special based on his poem . But what Poe doesn't get enough credit for is his part in inventing the whole . Everyone knows the name of Sherlock Holmes . But Poe got there first, with his superior, and yet brilliant French detective, Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of . The whole idea of the detective was still new at this point. The first detective agency in the world was founded in Paris in 1. Fran. In fact, many people claim that the character of Dupin himself is based on Vidocq's diaries (source). As a writer of fiction, Poe took the process of using clues to figure out the identity of a criminal and used it in creating what he called . THE MODERN LIBRARY NEW YORK The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Dupin Tales Edited and with an Introduction by Matthew Pearl Edgar Allan Poe Poe Lyrics to 'Murders In The Rue Morgue' song by IRON MAIDEN: I remember it as plain as day Although it happened in the dark of the night. I was strolling through.In Poe's Dupin stories, it's not just the main man who is trying to work out who the culprit is; it's also us, the readers. Anything in the story, no matter how minor, could be evidence of whodunit, and we're supposed to use our knowledge of human nature to figure out what the answer has to be. Just in case you can't get enough. Somehow, it never gets old, even though we've seen the same scene in a million movies. Our hero, sitting across the card table from his nemesis, plays a tense hand of poker. A bead of sweat drips down the side of our hero's face as he looks at his hand. Should he call, raise, or fold? The player can be Bond in Casino Royale. It can be Brad Pitt conning a bunch of hapless players in the opening scenes of Ocean's Eleven. Or it can be Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy, freaking out an outmatched Kenneth in 3. Rock. And it all comes down to the same thing: he's got to choose something. The stakes are high, and it's not just a matter of what he's holding, or what he might get from the dealer. He has to take into account his opponent's hand: can he read the guy's face, can he find a signal that will tell him if his opponent has good cards or bad cards? This is essentially how Poe sets up . Poe really admires a certain kind of mind. He is interested when a card player can look at his opponents' faces and his own cards and decide who's got to be holding the aces. Come, Poe invites, if you like a good poker player, you'll love my detective hero, Dupin. Dupin's giant brain allows him to find everybody's secrets and to determine whether he should bluff or call.
Dupin's so great at combining reason and intuition that he doesn't even need games like poker; he can use his superior intellect to fight crime. Even we humble types, who always lose at poker and who've never had the opportunity to solve a murder, have to admit that it would be great to be able to read people the way Dupin can. He's not too sociable, but he's a genius at observing people and telling what they're thinking. And Poe gets that, with a guy as awesome as Dupin, it's natural for us to envy him. So he gives us a deep look into how Dupin's mind works. After all, the more we know about him, the better we'll be able to imitate his way of thinking. This story is like a brainteaser, meant to step up our own powers of observation and deduction. Who knows, after reading.
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