Regarded by many as the world’s first detective story, Edgar Allan Poe here creates C. Auguste Dupin, the proto-Sherlock Holmes, investigating the murder of two women and arriving at a startling – and horrifying – conclusion. 

‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ was first published in 1841 in Graham’s Magazine and is the first of three stories to center around Dupin, who here explains his theory of ‘ratiocination, ‘ where a precise, logical and unemotional examination of the facts will lead to the solution of a mystery…no matter how bizarre the conclusion.  Poe’s Dupin had a profound impact on later writers and his theory of detection is clearly reflected in Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ series as well as the works of Agatha Christie.

This edition also features an essay by Poe’s contemporary and friend N.P. Willis entitled ‘The Death of Edgar A. Poe.’