The Murders in the Rue Morgue

The Murders in the Rue Morgue appeared in Graham's Magazine in 1841. Poe called the story a tale of ratiocination, and it is generally taken to be the first detective story in the modern sense of the term.

Its detective is C. Auguste Dupin, a gentleman in Paris who lives largely at night and who has cut himself off from his former acquaintances. Called in to a case in which two women have been killed, he works from the testimony of the witnesses, who all heard a voice but cannot agree on the language it was speaking, and from details at the scene that suggest the killer was not human.

Dupin's manner and methods set the pattern for a great deal that followed. The brilliant detective, the friend who narrates his cases, and the trick of presenting the solution before the reasoning that produced it all appear here, and they were taken up by writers including Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Dupin himself returns in The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter.