The The Murders in the Rue Morgue reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe and one of the first in what eventually became known as the "detective story" genre. Although it is predated by — among others — Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" can almost certainly lay legitimate claim to being the first Locked room mystery.

Warning: Plot details follow.

Plot

Auguste Dupin investigates a series of baffling deaths of Parisians, who are brutally killed in apparently inaccessable rooms. Dupin reaches the astounding conclusion that killings were not murder per se but were carried out by a wild orangutan.

External Resource

• Project Gutenberg e-text of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, volume 1 (contains "The Murders in the Rue Morgue")
• The origins of Detective Fiction: Origins of Detective Fiction

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