"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841.

It features the brilliant deductions of Auguste Dupin and is one of the first detective stories, and is almost certainly the first locked room mystery. It first appeared in Graham's Magazine in April, 1841.

Plot

The detective Auguste Dupin investigates a series of baffling murders, whose victims are brutally killed in apparently inaccessible rooms along the Rue Morgue, a street in Paris.

Dupin reaches the astounding conclusion that killings were not murder per se but were carried out by a wild "Ourang-Outang," (orangutan) the escaped pet of a sailor.

Quotation: Poe's rules for the locked room

Movies

• "Murders in the Rue Morgue" was turned into a movie by Universal Studio's in 1932, which starred Bela Lugosi.''.

References in other media

• "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is also the name of a song by Iron Maiden; it was inspired by Poe's story. The song appears on their second album Killers.
• The horror culture magazine Rue Morgue took its name from the story.

External links

• The Murders in the Rue Morgue
• Full text on PoeStories.com with hyperlinked vocabulary words.
• The Origins of Detective Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe short stories | Detective fiction

Els crims del carrer Morgue | Der Doppelmord in der Rue Morgue | Los asesinatos de la rue Morgue | Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue