Preview of Murders in the Rue Morgue Summary:

Poe gained great recognition in the early 1840s for his creation of a type of story that has grown in popularity ever since—the detective story, or tale of ratiocination, which features an amateur sleuth who, by his superior deductive abilities, outsmarts criminals and outclasses the police. Such stories as "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" created a small sensation in America when they were first published. "The Purloined Let ter'" the third and final story in the Dupin series, has been the subject of a great deal of critical analysis since its publication as a model of ironic and tightly-structured plot.

"Murders in the Rue Morgue," is the most popular of the three because it combines horrifying, inexplicable events with astonishing feats of deductive reasoning. The narrator, the forerunner of Dr. Watson of the Sherlock Holmes stories, meets Auguste Dupin in...