The rating is dragged down by the Mystery of Marie Roget being absolutely atrocious. It's not a story, it's a barely fictionalised tale about a real murder. It goes on far too long and it's padded out by pages and pages of incredibly tedious prattle that's not saying anything interesting. It's intense criticism of a few paragraphs from newspapers and then a couple of pages of total supposition to "solve" the case which is incredibly unconvincing and doesn't explain anything. And he then ends by a bizarre claim that if you roll 2 6s on dice, it's incredibly unlikely to roll a 3rd 6 because it's not independent events.

All of the stories are ludicrously padded, even the shortest, and full of total prattle where he makes bizarre bullshit claims about science, maths, deduction, logic, metaphysics etc that are clearly wrong or don't make any sense. Apparently chess is a game for stupid people because it has too much variety unlike true genius game draughts. Everything is dragged out yet there's minimal building of interest that might make you want to trudge through this. Both rue morgue and purloined letter have a slightly clever solution but it's so weighed down by waffle and ludicrous coincidences or stuff that's just plain wrong. the portrayal of orangutans is so fucking stupid and the solution requires so many absurd coincidences and apparently NOBODY SPOTTING A WILD ORANGUTAN IN CENTRAL PARIS FOR WEEKS??? The Purloined Letter has a slightly clever idea but requires that, despite the pages and pages of the police searching every nook and cranny of the minister's apartment, they never actually checked the personal letters of the minister. Despite looking for... A letter. The solution is like hiding something in an envelope

I made it through just because I'm fascinated by the mystery genre and was curious as to the origins. I understand how people could come away from these wanting to write more - in Rue Morgue he basically invents THE detective, the stereotype that's still completely recognisable now, fully formed in all his quirks, which is an absolutely incredible achievement, honestly - but I'm so glad there's been so much improvement since because good god this was hard work for popular literature. ( )

Most English-language readers associate detective stories with the Sherlock Holmes series. However, these books, as famous and well-composed as they are, do not mark the first detective stories in world literature. Instead, that achievement falls to the great American literary giant Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote three short stories in the 1840s and published them in both America and France for literary prizes. Each readable in a short sitting, they continue to enchant readers with intrigue and deductive logic today.

The central figure in all three stories is the fictional, protagonist detective C. Auguste Dupin, a Frenchman living in Paris. The narratives do not explain anything about his personal life in terms of biography. Instead, he engages us with tales of his immense deductive logic from the facts of a crime scene. Much like Holmes after him, Poe’s lead detective is able to note things that most of us do not see and things that the police (symbolizing the established authorities) do not see either.

Interestingly, these tales may bear some resemblance to real circumstances, particularly The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. This story resembles the real story of a Mary Rogers murdered in America and may have been sponsored to support the case – justly or unjustly – of a real accused suspect (detailed in Pearl’s Introduction). The scenarios of the crime scenes are simultaneously realistic, gruesome, and worthy of deep journalistic investigation.

I honestly had some difficulty following the third, shortest story, The Purloined Letter. At only 17 pages, a lesser amount of words had less space to build intrigue for me. I further found the setup (of needing to keep a letter secret) to be confusing. Letters sent today via post are typically viewed as secure, but apparently, letters were more vulnerable in Poe’s world. I did not identify with this short story much, however, and this was the only significant negative in reading these stories.

Though his life was spent in insecurity and poverty, Poe’s artistry as a writer is universally appreciated almost 200 years later. As such, his stories – particularly those that are literary firsts – deserve continued attention. The degree to which these early stories mastered the genre of a detective story astounds me. These are mature tellings with mature reasoning, and frankly, the vivid intrigue of Holmes (the crown jewel of the genre) has nothing on Poe’s Dupin. For that reason alone, curious readers should engage these stories. ( )

'That is another of your odd notions,' said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything 'odd' that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of 'oddities.'

As noted this was life preserver book, bought for loose change and kept in my truck for just such an occasion. Poe's Dupin stories are cerebral but not charming. There is little here of atmosphere nor much banter. Upon reflection, there isn't much humanity at all on display. These are exercises, examples of a methodology. It is easy to see how compelling Dupin's improbable genius was to readers. The allure continues to our own jaded days. Note to self: all days have been jaded. ( )

This was sooooo not like any film I have ever seen of the same title. I loved this and I hated every film I ever saw of it. As I have said on more than one occasion, how did they get those movies out of this story? ( )

Said to be the birth of the detective genre, and consequently, an inspiration for many fictional detectives, most notably, of course, being Sherlock Holmes, it was impossible to pass this slim volume up when I spied it in the used books section. I had never heard of it before, despite having read quite a few Poe stories when I was young.

The first story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," could have almost been a Holmes story. The entirely self-confident Dupin sets a trap for one of the persons of interest, smugly reviewing his reasoning to his associate as he waits for the knock on the door (to what you could almost imagine being 221B Baker Street, were it in London, not Paris.) There was a bit where I was concerned that Poe was painting orangutans as casually violent, but the story pulled back from that.

The second story, "The Mystery of Marie Roget," however, was kind of unsufferable. It just ground on and on, and I kept thinking, "Even Holmes would be tired of listening to himself by now!" Footnotes allude to the story being inspired by a real-life mystery, and that it appears Poe basically solved it ahead of everyone, despite not ever visiting the scene of the crime? I don't know, it was confusing. So maybe he was showing off, or trying to convince real-life authorities, I don't know. What I do know is that it got a bit tedious and I had to slog through it.

The third story, "Purloined Letter" was delightful again. It seemed to mirror quite closely the one episode of Downton Abbey I have ever seen in my life. I wonder if it was inspired directly?

So, sort of hit and miss. But definitely interesting! ( )