Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in The Rue Morgue

OVO JE STRANICA BROJ NULA
OVI LAVOVI NA IDUĆOJ STRANICI (BROJ 1) TREBAJU BITI S DESNE STRANE

CERTIFICATE
This book is unique, one of a kind
and printed in one copy only!
Proud owner is:
Serial book number is written on rear cover:
Confirming this information with my signature:
STJEPAN JURAS
EDGAR ALLAN POE
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
All written content besides Edgar Allan Poe's story

Stjepan Juras
Translation, adaptation and proof-reading of Juras' text

Ana Marija Abramović
Cover design, illustration and layout

Stjepan Juras
Print
ITG d.o.o., Zagreb
Copyright © (except Poe's story) Stjepan Juras 2020

Published by Stjepan Juras. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication (Poe's story, pictures, photos illustrations and graphics
are excluded) may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permissions may be sought directly from Stjepan Juras in his office in Zadar,
Croatia: phone: 00385(0)99 4186 308, e-mail: fanclub@maidencroatia.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication data available in the Online Catalogue of the

Research Library in Zadar under CIP record 160421083
ISBN 978-953-98320-9-2
For information on all Stjepan Juras publications please

visit his website at www.maidencroatia.com
Printed in Croatia
EDGAR ALLAN POE
THE MURDERS
IN THE RUE
MORGUE
Zadar, March 2020

Zadar, March 2020
KILLER DEAL
EDITION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE ULTIMATE REVENGE OF RUFFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD 9
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE 29
THE FATHER OF ALL DETECTIVES 63
POE – LEGACY OF THE MIST 71
E. A. POE AND IRON MAIDEN 83
THE STORY BEHIND THE 'RUE MORGUE' SONG 91
EDDIE AND POE 94
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 97
PHOTO AND LYRIC CREDITS 98
IRON MAIDEN AND CLASSIC LITERATURE 99
WARNING!
Fantastic Iron Maiden fan websites such as Ironmaidencommentary,
Maidencroatia, Maidenlive, Maidenfans, Maidenrevelations, Ironmaiden-bg,
ironmaiden666, Maidenthebeast, MaidenSpainFC various other fan websites
and all their contributors deserve utmost hats down for all they did to
preserve the great legacy of Iron Maiden for all future generations. Iron
Maiden would have NEVER been so massive if there were no loyal fans willing
to spend months and years exploring all aspects of this amazing band's
history. As an author, they ALL have my immense gratitude for making it quite
easy for me to find certain facts, old interviews, lost photographs and other
bits and pieces all of which helped to make this book. However, this book is
not, nor was it initially intended to become an official printed document
which would unite most of this trivia and priceless knowledge. If that was the
case, I could not nor would I want to call this book my original piece. This book
(beside Poe's novel) is a series of exclusive observations, cross-references and
brave speculations while delving into the most hidden secrets and motives
behind Maiden's cult song and other Poe related trivia, thoroughly discussed
from all points of view, considering all the selected segments that could have
affected the creation of the songs. Given that more than thirty nine years
have passed since 'Killers' album came out, I tried to give it a cool-headed
evaluation it clearly deserved, while taking into consideration both its
strengths and weaknesses. Here you will find a large number of new theses and
speculations never heard before, sometimes even shocking conclusions,
while some old puzzles will be uncovered for the very first time. I am
convinced that this piece will be the harbinger of discussion and controversy,
quite possibly dismissing some of the statements given in this book, but my
answer to that is simple. I'm a fan, and this book is the content of my direct
observations of the album. This is my tribute to it, for it introduced me to the
epic world of Iron Maiden, a world without which my life would surely be
dramatically different. So here's to a happy thirty-nineth birthday 'Killers' and
'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'!
STJEPAN JURAS
THREE HEROES
When it comes to bands and performers, various book authors try hard to make
their audience believe that while they aren't in possession of the official
product, they are buying something equally legit. The use of misleading PR is
common, trying to lure people into thinking they are actually paying for some
of the exclusive and never before seen materials seeping with deep insider info
about to shake the foundation of everything they believed they knew about
their favorite band or performer.
In this case, this is not necessary, because this ‘official’ adjective is what makes a
document seem more one-sided and devoid of all possible critique or quality
debate which enables us to learn from our own mistakes. Unlike all my earlier
books on Maiden albums, this book is about only one, cult, fan-favourite song, yet
despite its status it has never received much attention from Maiden themselves.
There was no single release, nor the possibility of an illustration by Derek Riggs,
although the uniqueness of its theme and story meant it had the potential to
become one of the most recognizable songs in Maiden history. In other words,
this is a book about a random Iron Maiden song that includes the original story by
E. A. Poe. However, in mentioning these two names together: Edgar Allan Poe
and Iron Maiden in one place, you must understand that we are talking about
something that has indebted the world, that changed, inspired, and forever
shaped millions of lives and set the boundaries of contemporary popular culture.
Some might say that the connection between Iron Maiden and the legacy of
E. A. Poe is logical, yet shallow. However, it is deeper and more complex than
you would think. That is why I’m proud to conclude: this is not an official
book, nor is it intended to act as such: it does not feature insider info, nor
is it trying to compile all of the info from available Wiki articles and
Maiden-related fan sites. It was not written encyclopaedically, factually,
statistically, it’s not trying to create a timeline of all the shows, bootlegs,
various album editions, awards, interviews and everything else. This book
is a piece of my soul, a story about my two – no, three – heroes: Edgar Allan
Poe, Iron Maiden, and Edward the Head – Eddie, who shaped my childhood
and forever altered the course of my life.
.
To the fans by a fan

THE ULTIMATE REVENGE OF RUFUS
WILMOT GRISWOLD
To many generations, Edgar Allan Poe is nothing more than a dark memory of
required reading at school, but every educated individual must realize that
Poe was a man of unprecedented genius, who left an indelible mark on the
history of America's arts in the first half of the 19th century. His literary works,
recognizable for their fantastic intertwining of fear, paranoia, the
supernatural, full of mysteries and puzzles, are no less interesting than his life,
especially his last days, and all that came to pass after the writer's untimely
death. Today, after marking the 211th anniversary of his birth, a growing
number of voices cast new light on the dusty prejudices that Poe was a mere
bum, junkie, drunkard and madman. Was everything we were taught in
school wrong? Well, judge for yourself…
“Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This
announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it…” – according
to an obituary in the New York Tribune, the day after Poe's death on October
8th, 1849. This maliciously intoned text bore the signature ‘Ludwig’ – a
pseudonym as it would later be found out, for one Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an
American poet, anthologist, editor and literary critic. Allegedly, Poe trusted
this man so much that he gave him permission and the authority to edit and
publish his works. Griswold, in turn, stabbed Poe in his dead back. He wrote
a near-fictional biography of Poe in which he plastered mud on him in various
ways, portraying him as a drunkard, a drug addict, and raving lunatic, going
so far as to forge some of his letters to portray him as distraught. It is amazing
how much different and conflicting information can be found on Poe’s life, in
books and online, especially about his death and the circumstances leading
up to it. One might be forgiven for almost believing that his dates of birth and
death, and the publication of certain of his works are the only credible facts,
and this is not far from the truth. Poe died at the age of forty, and the last
thing on his mind was leaving Griswold any kind of document giving him
executive powers.
A part of Poe's obituary in New-York Trubune.
There have been numerous speculations about the cause of Poe's sudden
death. Many have come up with elaborate theories about everything from a
brain haemorrhage, excessive alcohol, syphilis, suicide, poisoning by political
opponents, even rabies, but no one had any key evidence to support their
thesis. The furthest progress in the direction of illuminating Poe's death was
made by writer Matthew Pearl, author of the bestseller ‘The Dante Club’ and
‘Poe's Shadow’, where he intertwined imagination with actual documents
and reports. His conclusion was that Poe was probably suffering from a brain
tumour. Specifically, while reading old newspaper clippings, Pearl discovered
that when Poe’s coffin was exhumed and moved to a more fitting burial place
26 years after his death, a doctor noticed that Poe's brain was “visible through
the skull, perfectly preserved, reduced in size but with no deterioration.”
Furthermore, a gravedigger who handled Poe's skull noticed that his brain
appeared to be clattering around inside, like a solid object. Pearl went on to
consult a pathologist who believes that everything points to the writer’s brain
having calcified after death, suggesting that Poe was suffering from a brain
tumour. Later revelations, however, that the exhumation may have
uncovered a body that was mistakenly presented as Poe’s, come dangerously
close to toppling this theory.
The aforementioned rabies theory also has some basis in evidence. Namely,
there are proponents of the hypothesis that Poe was allergic to alcohol, and
that even a small glass of alcohol could lead him to extreme behaviour. In what
could probably be the final stage of rabies, which lasts four days on average,
the exact length of time that Poe was hospitalized, he refused all fluids including
alcohol, which his doctor described as a fear of water. Today, many recognise
this as a clear and typical symptom of the disease. Poe had multiple house pets,
and scientists point out that it is possible to suffer from rabies for up to a year
without prominent symptoms, which would also explain the lack of bite marks.
This theory is supported by the fact that Poe's symptoms were not quite
consistent with alcohol delirium, and chroniclers record that he wasn’t lucid
enough to describe what had happened to him. He was found October 3rd,
wearing clothes that did not belong to him and completely oblivious, on a bench
in front of a Baltimore pub where election candidates had been distributing free
drinks to voters, a fact that opens the door to another suspicious thesis.
An authentic picture of Edgar Allan Poe's corpse in morgue.

In rare moments of lucidity, it was recorded that he uttered two
sentences. The first was “the best thing my best friend could do would
be to blow out my brains with a pistol”. His last words were “Lord, help
my poor soul”. No autopsy took place after Poe's death, leading to
much speculation, because despite all the evidence, the doctors never
recorded Poe's death as being caused by alcohol. It should be noted
that the author of the rabies thesis initially had no idea who the case
was referring to. He analysed old case data at a conference on medical
pathology, only finding out later that his subject was E. A. Poe.
The website www.poeforward.com contains a plethora of facts about

Poe. The very beginning of the section about his relationship with his
literary executor Rufus Wilmot Griswold read as follows: “From Judas
Iscariot to Benedict Arnold to Lex Luthor, the geniuses of history and
mythology have suffered from traitors and arch enemies”, and Rufus
was this to Poe. Rufus, who became a Baptist minister following his
studies in theology, didn’t stay in that lone if business for long – his
nature was too arrogant and opportunistic. He continued his ‘career’ as
a poet, editor, anthologist and critic, and his life repeatedly intersected
Poe's, who was occasionally called on to needed to review his books.
Griswold didn't appreciate these reviews at all, because Poe, despite their
acquaintance, couldn't resist criticizing what he thought he must. Moreover,
as their relationship soured, Poe even mocked Griswold, making him a
fictional character in several of his stories, such as the drunken narrator of
‘Angel of the Odd’. Although they crossed paths again for reasons both
political and private (like the love both men professed for poet Frances Fanny
Sargent Osgood), and although they exchanged expressions of mutual
apology, Griswold never forgave Poe for his harsh criticism. As Poe emerged
victorious from their every literary and journalistic battle of wits, Griswold
had to wait for the writer to die in order to exact his ultimate revenge. It is
rather chilling that the rather long and shameful obituary could have been
published by the New York Tribune a mere day after Poe’s death. Signed just
‘Ludwig’, in a time before electricity it was a technically impossible
achievement, especially since Poe died in the late afternoon. The fact that the
obituary was published the very next morning raises many questions about
Griswold’s possible involvement in Poe's final days and death, but there was
no suspicion and the notion of such an investigation would have been unknown
at the time. Poe was far from friendless, and Nathaniel P. Willis, George R.
Graham and John Neal sent a written protest against Griswold's smear
campaign, forcing Griswold to admit that he was in fact Ludwig. But Griswold
was relentless in slandering Poe. Using political manipulation techniques and
the vocabulary of his religious past, he did his best to turn even friends and
admirers against Poe. But friends like Willis, Graham, Neal, as well as George
W. Peck, James Wood Davidson, Henry B. Hirst, Charles Chauncey Burr and
Sarah Helen Whitman tirelessly continued to challenge everything he wrote.
“Griswold was a notorious blackmailer... I myself had to pay him money to

prevent abusive notices of Sartain's Magazine”, wrote John Sartain in ‘Poe's
Last Days’, 1893, describing Griswold as a malicious blackmailer. Claiming that
Poe had personally given him power of attorney and made him his literary
executor (for which there is no written evidence), Griswold was able to
swindle Poe's stepmother Mary Clemm, transferring to himself all publication
rights to Poe’s works. Good ‘Mamma Clemm’, as Poe called her, was
responsible for many of the good things in his life. She was the most
understanding of him, took from her mouth to feed her daughter and him,
and was always supportive of everything Poe did. He dedicated some of his
most beautiful works to her, the most important of which is ‘Sonnet to My
Mother’, where he confers on Maria Clemm higher praise than is usually
heaped on the concept of the biological mother. Due to great poverty following
Poe's death, however, Maria Clemm made a crucial mistake and allowed herself
to be deceived by Griswold’s flattering words and financial promises, letting him
take possession of all of Poe's notes and works. To this day, it remains one of
the most bizarre turns in literary history. All Maria got from Griswold after these
lascivious promises was six copies of a book, a collection of Poe's works she later
tried to sell to raise money to survive, because Griswold didn't give her a cent.
As the person now responsible for the presentation of Poe's literary legacy, as
soon as he came into possession of Poe's notes, Griswold began to edit the
contents and correspondence, at the same time spreading lies about his
deceased rival’s life and behaviour. In the book, published in 1850, Griswold not
only forged Poe's letters, he changed words in some of Poe's works to lend
support to his lies about him, portraying him both as a friend and a drug addict.
Unfortunately, his baseless slander and lies quickly fell on fertile ground, as the
media and the public embraced this wretched image of Poe. Moreover, it is a
paradox that, despite Griswold's repeated attempts to denigrate and humiliate
Poe, this viciously conceived dark segment of Poe's biography, although
patently false, actually appealed to readers and future admirers, kicking off his
mystification and popularity in death.
It was only in 1875 that Englishman John Henry Ingram (1842-1916) published
an authentic biography of Poe which is responsible for the academic
resurrection of Poe's true character. Despite this, ‘the evil that men do lives
on and on’, and Griswold's caricature of Poe has lived on in the minds of the
uninformed general public to this day – surprisingly, many school books and
serious publications continue to describe Poe in accordance with Griswold's
depraved vision.
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth, HRT (Croatian Radio
Television) broadcast a segment on Poe in their TV Calendar programme, and
even here I was forced to watch this false, negative and dark narrative of his
life, something that will immediately repel many new generations of readers
and distance them from this literary genius… but will attract and fascinate
some. For this reason, it is vital to present Poe in the light he always deserved,
using the information and facts now available.
Griswold’s posthumous assassination of Poe’s reputation brought him little
happiness. He lived out his final days alone in a room where three portraits
hung on the walls: his own, Poe’s and that of Frances Osgood, the woman for
whose heart he had competed with Poe. Even this shows how, long after his
death, Poe continued to torment Griswold. Today, when Griswold's name is
entered into Google, he is mostly mentioned only in the context of his plot
against Poe, not as a writer or poet of any importance, Poe's ultimate
posthumous revenge.
Edgar Allan Poe's original and memorial burial place in Baltimore.
Poe was buried in a modest grave, but his remains were moved to a larger
monument in 1875. Today, certain theorists are increasingly asking whether
these remains are even his. As the original grave did not have proper markings, it
is in fact possible that the wrong body was exhumed and transferred to a new
coffin. At the time, the gravediggers were convinced that Poe's body was located
to the right of the marked grave of Poe's grandfather, it now appears to have been
quite the opposite. Neither the description of the coffin, nor the clothing and
height of the body correspond to Poe, but rather to a certain soldier named
Mosher, which again casts doubt on earlier testimonies that Poe's “mutilated
brain” was discovered during the exhumation. There are also suspicions that
instead of Virginia, Poe's wife, his stepmother Maria Clemm was exhumed by
mistake, making the whole turbulent story of Edgar Allan Poe's life and death, as
well as the events that followed, even more bizarre and unbelievable..
Maria and Virginia Clemm.
Even more interesting is the fact that Poe didn’t receive a dignified funeral until
160 years after his death, for his bicentennial. To mark the occasion, Stephen
Foley of New York published the following article on The Independent’s website,
on 12/10/2009:.
Edgar Allan Poe given funeral 160 years after his mysterious death!
American master of the horror story is finally told to rest in peace. Edgar Allan Poe,
master of the macabre, was finally given a funeral befitting his legacy as one of
the great writers of Gothic fiction yesterday, 160 years after his mysterious death.
Passersby gathered to witness some of the greatest names in the arts pay their
respects to one of their own: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 69 years deceased, was
there, along with Sir Alfred Hitchcock, who passed away in 1980, and
hundreds more acted as pallbearers and mourners as a replica of Poe's body
was pulled through the streets of the city of Baltimore, which is claiming him.
The aim of the event was to rectify an injustice.
Poe died on 7 October, 1849, at just 40, a few days after being found outside
a bar in Baltimore, delirious, penniless and unable to explain to anybody what
was wrong with him. His first funeral was never announced, so just 10 people
turned up to witness the burial of the great writer of ‘The Raven’ and ‘The Pit
and the Pendulum’, feted in his lifetime as a fearless literary critic and
recognised by history as the pioneer of detective fiction.
The services, planned at Westminster Hall near the Westminster Burial

Grounds, were to include eulogies offered by actors portraying other famed
writers. Hundreds of people have already visited the casket containing a
mannequin of Poe, before it was taken by horse-drawn carriage for the 19th-
century-style funeral. The event proved so popular that organisers put on a
second event after an all-night vigil at his graveside.
Jeff Jerome, who curates the Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, told local
reporters that the writer has been sorely misunderstood. "We say that guy must
have been one strange dude when, in effect, he was writing these stories not for
himself but for you and I," he said. "He tried the science fiction. But people wanted
blood, they wanted horror, they wanted premature burial. They wanted
superstition. They wanted murder. And he gave it to them, right between the eyes."
Whatever his gifts, Poe never made much money from his creative writing in
his lifetime, as the mystery of his death and the modesty of his original funeral
reveals. The cause of his death have the hallmarks of a Gothic mystery left
unfinished: fans and historians have debated between cholera, rabies or
syphilis and alcoholism. Contemporary newspaper reports cited "congestion
of the brain", but all medical records have been lost. The author is said to have
repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death. Like
much about Poe's life, exactly who he was referring to remains a mystery that
not even Sir Arthur and Sir Alfred could explain.
Those who failed to besmirch Poe as an artist decried instead his scandalous
marriage to his 13 year old relative Virginia, contracted when he was 27 years
old. Scandalous even for the standards of the time, their love is romanticized
to this day. Following her death, Poe fell into a state of great despair, and it
was possible to suspect that he would not long outlive her. His marriage is
portrayed shockingly and always from an incest/paedophilia angle, but
according to claims of numerous witnesses, their love was deep yet childlike,
and they played and sang together almost like children.
In fact, Virginia and Edgar's marriage might not have happened at all but for
the fact that his wealthy cousin Nelson Poe became interested in the beautiful
Virginia, and invited her to stay at his luxury apartment in Baltimore. Having
lived with Virginia and her mother Maria Clemm for several months by this
point, Edgar panicked. He had begun to view their poor but harmonious
household as his home. With Virginia’s departure, his humble but idealised
existence would be irreversibly disrupted. Accordingly, he wanted to prevent
Virginia from leaving at any cost. He was twenty-six at the time, but still
suffered from the trauma of abandonment and growing up an orphan, so
having nothing else of value to give Virginia, he decided to gift himself – that
is, a marriage that was more friendly than romantic. Many believe it was
never consummated, others believe they may have entered into physical
relations but only when Virginia reached the legal age for this. In a way, this
is corroborated by the anthological poem ‘Annabel Lee’, which Poe dedicated
to Virginia together with ‘Ulalume’ after her death. Poe wanted her to be
well-educated, so he taught her mathematics, and arranged for piano and
singing lessons because she had a beautiful voice. It was as she sang and
played to him one evening that Virginia started bleeding from her mouth, and
Poe knew immediately that this was the beginning of the end.
During Poe's glory days, women simply adored him and competed for his
attention. They invited him to parties and cajoled him to read his poems at
public appearances. Elizabeth F. Ellet, fan and co-worker, thought she could
win his heart by making public his adulterous affair with poet Frances Osgood,
believing she could separate Poe from both her and from his wife, Virginia.
Namely, Frances Osgood's husband had abandoned Frances several months
before she met Poe and she was trying to make her living by writing. Poe,
living in a platonic rather than romantic relationship with Virginia, found a
soulmate in her. According to friends and acquaintances, Frances and Poe fell
in love at first sight, and neither hesitated to express their emotions and read
love poems in public, although many also claim their love was merely platonic.
Poe's ‘affair’ was known of and approved by his wife-on-paper, but Rufus
Wilmot Griswold was severely affected, already resenting Poe’s sharp critic’s
pen. Drug addict, lunatic, chronic drunkard, and many other ‘epithets’
Griswold ‘honoured’ him with, had no foundation in truth. Poe's strict work
ethic did not allow for mindless intoxication. Indeed, during an illness, he tried
a small dose of opiates to relieve his symptoms, but was so disgusted that he
never took anything of the sort again.
Not everyone viewed the affair with Frances Osgood with approval. A certain
Anne Charlotte Lynch, a lover of literature, invited writers and artists to her home
throughout 1845 to discuss books and ideas in an informal atmosphere. Poe was
a member of this literary salon and their literary Saturday evenings quickly
became a hit. Poe did not miss a single gathering and opportunity to participate
in these inspirational discussions, but he was expelled from the group as soon as
the affair with Frances Osgood became known. Although the success of ‘The
Raven’ had made him a star on the New York scene in 1845, by February 1846 he
had become unwelcome in the same literary circles that had elevated him. This
was because of the rumours of his extramarital affair with Osgood, who managed
to preserve her own reputation by first denying the relationship and later
reconciling with her estranged husband despite her pregnancy. Poe remained
irreversibly in love, sending her a literary Valentine, which was read out in public
at the very literary salon to which he was denied access.
Lynn Cullen, author of the book ‘Mrs. Poe’, has gone into much more detail
about Poe’s final days and his adulterous affair with Osgood. She also notes
the ongoing discussions about the place where Poe was found just four days
before his death. It is utterly unclear how he found himself in Maryland, in a
state of such delirium and wearing beggar’s rags that didn’t belong to him, so
far from his home in New York. We have gone over many theories about his
sudden demise, but Lynn Cullen thinks Poe most likely contracted meningitis.
Having studied his correspondence and notes, she concluded that at the time
he was found in Maryland, Poe was also suffering from the misfortune of his
great infatuation with Frances Osgood and its consequences. Just a year
earlier, almost all Americans were quoting the famous sentence ‘Nevermore’
so often that even parodies of the poem began appearing in the press and the
major media. Poe was often followed by children, shouting ‘Nevermore’ at
him and clapping their approval. Poe made $400 that year (a huge sum back
then), but he earned much less the rest of the time and was often forced to
borrow rent money from friends and relatives. Poe loved cats and they loved
him, which became the inspiration for his most famous story, ‘The Black Cat’.
His favourite cat, named Caterina, reportedly suffered from depression when
he was away from home for long journeys, and following his death she
refused all food, dying just two weeks later.
The previous photo shows Frances Sargent Osgood, aka ‘Fanny’. The nature
of their relationship holds the key to clarifying what eventually led to Poe’s
great rivalry with Griswold. In February 1845, Poe was highly critical of
American poetry, especially that of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but of
Osgood he wrote that she had ‘a rosy future in literature’. It is believed that
Poe and Osgood first met in March 1845, at which time Osgood was separated
but not yet officially divorced from her husband. On the other hand, Poe's
wife Virginia was still alive but deathly ill. Both Poe and Osgood were born in
Boston, which served to bring them closer together, and Poe’s attention was
caught by Osgood’s childlike demeanour, reminiscent of Virginia, who really
was a child. Unfortunately, also like Virginia, Osgood was in the early stages
of tuberculosis.
Using his co-ownership in the Broadway Journal, Poe helped Osgood publish
some of her poems. He reacted to her professions of love by publishing poems
of his own in answer, using the pseudonym Edgar T. S. Gray. The most famous
of these was ‘A Valentine’, and if you read this poem carefully, you will notice
that Frances’ name is spelled out in it as the first letter in each line. Despite
the passionate lyrics, many people maintain that their relationship was purely
platonic. Moreover, Poe's wife Virginia approved of the affair, often inviting
Frances to their home, believing that this friendship had a very positive effect
on Poe. To impress Frances, for example, Poe stopped drinking altogether.
Virginia, unaware that Frances was also suffering from early-stage
tuberculosis, knew she was nearing her end and was looking for someone
who would continue to care for Poe. Even Osgood's husband Samuel didn't
appear to be too concerned, even painting a famous portrait of Poe. He was
evidently used to his wife’s behaviour and flirtations with everyone – not to
mention that he himself had quite the reputation of a philanderer.
Elizabeth F. Ellet, who as mentioned above was spreading the rumours about
Poe's relationship with Osgood, even contacted Virginia personally. She went
so far as to claim that Osgood's third child, Fanny Fay, born in June 1846 and
passed away in October of the same year, was in fact Poe’s, noted as a
possibility by Poe's biographer Kenneth Silverman. In an attempt to protect
her public reputation, Osgood sent Margaret Fuller and Anne Lynch to Poe,
asking him to return her letters so she could destroy them, and in July 1846
her husband demanded a public apology to his wife from Elizabeth F. Ellet,
threatening to sue her for defamation. Ellet withdrew all of her statements,
but deprived of Poe's love, she shifted the blame to Poe and his wife, Virginia.
Following this, after 1847, Poe and Osgood no longer communicated.
It is relevant to note that Poe was not the only man Osgood shared her love
of literature with. She had several other similar relationships, including one
with Griswold, to whom she once dedicated a book of poetry and even wrote
a love poem in which she interwove her name and his. So even more than
Poe’s harsh criticism, this competition to win her heart may have been the
biggest reason for their famous rivalry, culminating in the public posthumous
shattering of Poe's reputation by Griswold.
Before I go on with the story of Poe and Griswold's relationship, it is
interesting to note that even the average reader recalls Poe’s most famous
photograph when he is mentioned (see photo on the previous page), and his
insane, emaciated appearance. However, this photograph was taken in the
year of his death, when Poe was already in the terminal phase of his illness.
Look for photographs taken around the publication of ‘The Raven’, and you
will see a handsome man posing, everything in the photo giving the air of a
true gentleman. Not many are aware that Poe was in fact athletically built –
he held the record for swimming in the James River in Virginia, often went
rowing in the New York Gulf. He also enjoyed hiking, while in his student days
he was a junior long jump champion.
Let’s return to the famous rivalry and look at it from all angles, which go
deeper than the twenty or so pages of Google results and basic information
available on Wikipedia. In his text about Poe, published the day after Poe's
death, ‘Ludwig’, or the undercover Griswold, wrote something diametrically
opposed to who Poe really was... ‘He walked the streets in madness... His
heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom.’ Poe’s body
hadn’t yet been lowered into the ground, yet ‘Ludwig’ had embarked on a
grand, well-calculated fraud, including altering documents relating to Poe's
life, deliberately lying, and falsifying so many of his quotes that to this day,
Poe's character is associated with drunkenness, madness, addiction and
perversion of every kind. On the other hand, Griswold worked tirelessly as
Poe's official biographer and collector of all his works. As an editor, he soon
published a volume of Poe's poetry, stories and essays, and it has to be said
that this was a huge undertaking because it was very difficult to collect and
edit all the materials. Namely, Poe published his poems, stories, essays,
reviews, and articles in many different magazines and newspapers, and would
revisit and edit them every time. In those days it would have been difficult,
almost impossible to find all these materials, but Griswold was dogged in his
task, gathering an incredibly comprehensive collection, a job for which he was
probably heavily underpaid. In the press, Griswold published praise for Poe's
talent in the papers, but as Ludwig (until he was unmasked), he used the same
media to defame him at every opportunity.
It is difficult to discern Griswold's deepest motives for everything he did.
Namely, in becoming Poe's biographer after his death, he threw himself with
intensity into the difficult task of collecting and publishing Poe’s works,
making Poe what he is today and most certainly saved him from oblivion’s
reach. On the other hand, with equal intensity, he worked to destroy Poe's
character and integrity. Many find this incomprehensible, but a deeper
analysis nevertheless begins to show some things more clearly. Griswold
began his career as an editor and publisher by rising through the publishing
hierarchy, and over time he became one of the most respected editors,
publishers and anthologists of his day. He set the standard for future editors,
especially with the first American edition of Milton's prose, and multiple
anthologies of American writers. During 1848, he published a very innovative
volume of American poetry, at the same time working as an editor for leading
East Coast magazines and newspapers like The New Yorker. Despite the
bizarre episode with Poe, Griswold was known for his hard work and integrity,
and was better known as an editor who helped launch the careers of many
young writers and journalists than for his poetry and short stories. His work
was a significant contribution to the creation of an independent American
literary presence, and after meeting and befriending Poe, the two were
united in the effort to create a generation of writers who were completely
independent of European influence.
How is it possible, then, that Poe is so besmirched? Was Griswold really driven
by jealousy, or did he come up with a great PR strategy designed to turn the
extremely talented and infinitely creative writer (though deceased) into a
world-class literary superstar, to put American literature on the world map
with a superstar hailing from the United States of America? One thing is
certain: whether or not he loved Poe, Griswold was well aware of his
ingenuity, both during his life and after his death. The dedication with which
he collected all his works, even hanging Poe's portrait in his house until
Griswold's death, certainly prove this, as do Poe's poems in Griswold’s 1841
anthology of American poets. That year, they had the opportunity of meeting
and befriended each other, as is evidenced by their mutual public praise. In
the beginning, Poe described Griswold as an excellent poet and a very
prominent authority on American literature, while Griswold spoke of Poe as
an elegant gentleman and a superb poet. Over the years, the friendship and
mutual respect continued. Griswold included the famous horror story ‘The
Fall of the House of Usher’ in his 1847 volume of American writers of prose,
praising it, he wrote that the little-known Poe showed great talent. Moreover,
Griswold asked Poe to write a few lines about himself so a mini biography
could be included in the book, and despite realizing that Poe had written a
rather brilliant but entirely fictional biography, Griswold published it exactly
as it was sent.
Both Griswold and Poe shared a fanatical commitment to upholding the

greatest literary standards, but their pursuit of different muses and ideals
slowly began to separate them. Intrigued by the mainstream and prosperity
of the ever-growing publishing world, Griswold found what he wanted and it
brought him financial and academic prosperity, while Poe excelled as a
literary critic. In his work, he did not hesitate to criticize even the most
respected writers when he felt it necessary, while pretending to be an
outsider. Through their different yet related jobs, Griswold and Poe remained
in contact, nor did each other harm. But when Graham Magazine fired Poe as
editor and hired Griswold behind his back, offering him a much higher salary
for the same post to boot, Poe took this to heart as a great defeat. He did not
believe Griswold to be equal to the job – as a publisher he regarded him as
nothing more than a cunning rearranger of other people's works. It is
interesting to note that, several years later, Poe and Griswold were forced to
cooperate and work together whether they wished to or not, the literary
world of the period was too small for them never to meet for business or at
various events. Poe, as a very productive poet and writer, wrote stories, and
Griswold published them in the various magazines he edited. Assuming that
Poe did indeed appoint Griswold his literary executor, he must have truly
trusted him. Poe had high standards and rarely considered anyone qualified
enough, while Griswold respected Poe and never tried to undermine his
literary merit, even in death. However, while Poe’s writing and creativity,
even his genius, did not pose as many problems for Griswold as did his ideas.
In his writing, Griswold saw a pagan threat. Namely, Poe never went to
church, and in his ideas, he innovated and advocated a pantheistic, Platonic
philosophy, while Griswold was a traditional Protestant and literary
conservative, who represented the church – he was a priest, after all. In
addition to this, for the pittance paid to him, Poe closed many doors for
himself with his sharp, uncompromising, and usually correct – but too direct
– critic’s tongue, untactfully exposing the flaws of various literary greats.
None of them could quite digest the bile he spilled in his reviews, although he
did it in a humorous way. His honesty went so far that he dared call his adored
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow a plagiarist. Although he felt that Griswold was
of little use as a publisher or editor, the initial political correctness with which
he expressed himself positively about Griswold as a writer slowly dissolved,
and their relationship entered a painful phase of crises, literary outbursts
both in the press and in literary circles. The icing on the cake of all these
animosities was the Osgood affair. Thus, a tentative friendship that started
and changed the American literary scene turned into a rivalry, which time has
shown became larger than life and is still being written today, no one quite
knows whose side they should ultimately take. It’s true that Poe is ingenious,
extraordinary, exciting and an absolute innovator, which from his point of
view gives him a great, perhaps even crucial, advantage in the decision
process. I’m as huge a fan of Edgar Allan Poe as I am of Iron Maiden, so it is
quite easy for me to understand why people view Griswold as a greedy
publisher, a talentless hack who, out of jealousy and spite tried to ruin the
career of the most brilliant poet in the United States history. If we look a little
further afield from our ‘cheerleader’ standpoint, we can also see that without
Griswold's involvement we might never fully know Poe. He would probably
remain just another cool poet among thousands, whose career and ingenuity
spread like wildfire in the various US newspapers of that time, but was never
able to get a real chance to reach the rest of the world. Moreover, Poe's
falsified biography has made him more interesting, one of the first true icons
of American pop culture. Just imagine Iron Maiden without the involvement
of Rod Smallwood, Andy Taylor and EMI Records?
Two years after Poe's infamous obituary, published just a day after his death,
Griswold wrote another highly distorted text about Poe for an international
monthly magazine, equating him with the characters of his grotesque horror
stories, and claiming that the mind that had created such characters and
situations was definitely sick. In addition, he did not hesitate to add that Poe
was immature; a creative genius, but insecure and possessing a faulty or
defective personality.
Griswold was a lover of drama by nature, but such a powerful attack on Poe
was utterly unlike his usual external presentation, because the world at large
knew him as a cooperative person with gentlemanly manners. Undoubtedly,
this exterior was false, that is, calculated. Griswold, of course, was never a
‘saint’, but the Poe situation truly went too far, and we can only speculate on
why Griswold, despite everything, put a lot of effort into preserving all of
Poe's records as accurately as possible, for which – let's be honest – he wasn’t
rewarded in proportion to the time and effort. His name is barely noticed in
everything he later published in his editorial role, thus we must consider the
possibility that he really did play the part of an excellent posthumous
manager here, perhaps even in collusion with Poe. Griswold was just six years
younger than Poe, and died a mere eight years later, meaning they lived
equally long (short) lives – it just seems a little strange that they this type of
executive arrangement even crossed their minds at the time.
If the theories about posthumous executorship were not true, and if this
really was just jealousy and malice, then everything Griswold did to Poe to
devalue him came back to hurt him many times over. When Poe was
rediscovered in the 1920s, and recognized as an innovator both in poetry and
prose, Griswold's name was tarnished, and today he is remembered by
historians and the public alike as Poe's unscrupulous literary executor and the
embodiment of deception. Thomas Lowell justifiably calls him a villain, even
though we must be grateful to him in some way for collecting all of Poe's
work. The shady, eccentric and sombre image Griswold built around Poe's
name was certainly dishonest and unfair, but it was what gave Poe his public
image of an eccentric, ultimately only increasing his popularity today. This
brief overview of his intricate biography, a rivalry complemented by a woman
flirting with two polar opposites (and several others on the side) as a means
of advancing her own career, is almost the perfect story for a tragic movie
that must be told. Edgar Allan Poe has become a ubiquitous part of today’s
pop culture, and we are justified in wondering just how much of the credit is
due to his talent alone, and how much of it can be attributed to Griswold's
management?
Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue
28
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid
himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all
conjecture. --SIR THOMAS BROWNE, Urn-Burial.
The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but

little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We
know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor,
when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the
strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his
muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which
disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations
bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of
hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which
appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results, brought
about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air
of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by
mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which,
unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called,
as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-
player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that
the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly
misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a
somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will,
therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective
intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious
game of draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter,
where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and
variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for
what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag
for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The
possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such
oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more
concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts,
29
on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the
probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being
left comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained
by superior acumen. To be less abstract --Let us suppose a game of draughts
where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no
oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided
(the players being at all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result
of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the
analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself
therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods
(sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error
or hurry into miscalculation.
Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the
calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have been known
to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while eschewing chess as
frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking
the faculty of analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom may be little
more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity
for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles
with mind. When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which
includes a comprehension of all the sources whence legitimate advantage
may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and lie frequently
among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary
understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly; and, so far,
the concentrative chess-player will do very well at whist; while the rules of
Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are
sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory,
and to proceed by "the book," are points commonly regarded as the sum total
of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the
skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and
inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent
of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference
as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what
to observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is
the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game. He
examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that of
30
each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the cards in each
hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by honor, through the
glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every variation of face
as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought from the differences in
the expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or chagrin. From the
manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can
make another in the suit. He recognizes what is played through feint, by the
air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the
accidental dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or
carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the
order of their arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or
trepidation --all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of
the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he
is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts
down his cards with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of the
party had turned outward the faces of their own.
The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for
while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man often
remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power, by
which ingenuity is usually manifested, and which the phrenologists (I believe
erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a primitive faculty,
has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect bordered otherwise
upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation among writers on
morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference
far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of
a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are
always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light
of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.
Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I there
became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young gentleman
was of an excellent --indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of
untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his
character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world,
31
or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there
still remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon
the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy,
to procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its
superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are
easily obtained.
Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the
accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very
remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw each other
again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history which he
detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever
mere self is the theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of his reading;
and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the
vivid freshness of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I
felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price;
and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we
should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly
circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was
permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which
suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and
grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did
not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the
Faubourg St. Germain.
Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should
have been regarded as madmen --although, perhaps, as madmen of a
harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed
the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own
former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to
know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.
It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be
enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all
his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect
abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we
could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all
32
the massy shutters of our old building; lighted a couple of tapers which,
strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the
aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams --reading, writing, or
conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then
we sallied forth into the streets, arm and arm, continuing the topics of the
day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights
and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which
quiet observation can afford.
At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from his rich
ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic ability in Dupin.
He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its exercise --if not exactly in its
display --and did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He
boasted to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to
himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such
assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my
own. His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were
vacant in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble
which would have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire
distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt
meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself
with the fancy of a double Dupin --the creative and the resolvent.
Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am detailing any
mystery, or penning any romance. What I have described in the Frenchman,
was merely the result of an excited, or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But
of the character of his remarks at the periods in question an example will best
convey the idea.
We were strolling one night down a long dirty street, in the vicinity of the
Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied with thought, neither of us
had spoken a syllable for fifteen minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke
forth with these words:-
"He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the Theatre des
Varietes."
33
"There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and not at first

observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary
manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations. In an instant
afterward I recollected myself, and my astonishment was profound.
"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not hesitate

to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses. How was it
possible you should know I was thinking of --?" Here I paused, to ascertain
beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom I thought.
--"of Chantilly," said he, "why do you pause? You were remarking to yourself
that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy."
This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections. Chantilly
was a quondam cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming stage-mad, had
attempted the role of Xerxes, in Crebillon's tragedy so called, and been
notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.
"Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method --if method there is --
by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter." In fact I
was even more startled than I would have been willing to express.
"It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, "who brought you to the conclusion
that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for Xerxes et id genus
omne."
"The fruiterer! --you astonish me --I know no fruiterer whomsoever."
"The man who ran up against you as we entered the street --it may have been
fifteen minutes ago."
I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a large
basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we passed from
the Rue C-- into the thoroughfare where we stood; but what this had to do
with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.
34
There was not a particle of charlatanerie about Dupin. "I will explain," he said,
"and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will explain," he said, "and that
you may comprehend all clearly, we will first retrace the course of your
meditations, from the moment in which I spoke to you until that of the
rencontre with the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run thus
--Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the
fruiterer."
There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused
themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own
minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest; and he who
attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable
distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal. What,
then, must have been my amazement when I heard the Frenchman speak
what he had just spoken, and when I could not help acknowledging that he
had spoken the truth. He continued:
"We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before leaving the
Rue C--. This was the last subject we discussed. As we crossed into this street,
a fruiterer, with a large basket upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust
you upon a pile of paving-stones collected at a spot where the causeway is
undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments) slipped,
slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky, muttered a few words,
turned to look at the pile, and then proceeded in silence. I was not particularly
attentive to what you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a
species of necessity.
"You kept your eyes upon the ground --glancing, with a petulant expression,
at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw you were still thinking of
the stones,) until we reached the little alley called Lamartine, which has been
paved, by way of experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here
your countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I could not
doubt that you murmured the word 'stereotomy,' a term very affectedly
applied to this species of pavement. I knew that you could not say to yourself
'stereotomy' without being brought to think of atomies, and thus of the
theories of Epicurus; and since, when we discussed this subject not very long
ago, I mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the vague
35
guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in the late nebular
cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid casting your eyes upward to the
great nebula in Orion, and I certainly expected that you would do so. You did
look up; and I was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But
in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's 'Musee,'
the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the cobbler's change of
name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have
often conversed. I mean the line
Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.
I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written Urion; and,
from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I was aware that
you could not have forgotten it. It was clear, therefore, that you would not
fall to combine the ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I
say by the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of
the poor cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but
now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then sure that you
reflected upon the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted
your meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little fellow --that
Chantilly --he would do better at the Theatre des Varietes."
Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of the "Gazette
des Tribunaux," when the following paragraphs arrested our attention.
"Extraordinary Murders. --This morning, about three o'clock, the inhabitants

of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a succession of terrific
shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the fourth story of a house in the Rue
Morgue, known to be in the sole occupancy of one Madame L'Espanaye, and
her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L'Espanaye. After some delay,
occasioned by a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner,
the gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the neighbors
entered, accompanied by two gendarmes. By this time the cries had ceased;
but, as the party rushed up the first flight of stairs, two or more rough voices,
in angry contention, were distinguished, and seemed to proceed from the
upper part of the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds,
also, had ceased, and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party spread
36
themselves, and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at a large back
chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which, being found locked, with the
key inside, was forced open,) a spectacle presented itself which struck every
one present not less with horror than with astonishment.
"The apartment was in the wildest disorder --the furniture broken and thrown
about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from this the bed
had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the floor. On a chair lay a
razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick
tresses of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been
pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-
ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three smaller of metal d'Alger, and
two bags, containing nearly four thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a
bureau, which stood in one corner, were open, and had been, apparently,
rifled, although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe was
discovered under the bed (not under the bedstead). It was open, with the key
still in the door. It had no contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers
of little consequence.
"Of Madame L'Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual quantity
of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was made in the chimney,
and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the daughter, head downward, was
dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a
considerable distance. The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many
excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which
it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe
scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger
nails, as if the deceased had been throttled to death.
"After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, without farther

discovery, the party made its way into a small paved yard in the rear of the
building, where lay the corpse of the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut
that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the
head, was fearfully mutilated --the former so much so as scarcely to retain
any semblance of humanity.
"To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the slightest clew."
37
The next day's paper had these additional particulars.
"The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue. Many individuals have been examined in
relation to this most extraordinary and frightful affair," [The word 'affaire' has
not yet, in France, that levity of import which it conveys with us] "but nothing
whatever has transpired to throw light upon We give below all the material
testimony elicited.
"Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known both the deceased
for three years, having washed for them during that period. The old lady and
her daughter seemed on good terms-very affectionate towards each other.
They were excellent pay. Could not speak in regard to their mode or means
of living. Believed that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to
have money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called for
the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no servant in employ.
There appeared to be no furniture in any part of the building except in the
fourth story.
"Pierre Moreau, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit of selling
small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L'Espanaye for nearly four
years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always resided there. The
deceased and her daughter had occupied the house in which the corpses
were found, for more than six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller,
who under-let the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the
property of Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the
premises by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any
portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter some five
or six times during the six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired life --
were reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the neighbors that
Madame L. told fortunes --did not believe it. Had never seen any person enter
the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a
physician some eight or ten times.
"Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No one
was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether there
were any living connexions of Madame L. and her daughter. The shutters of
the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear were always
38
closed, with the exception of the large back room, fourth story. The house
was a good house --not very old.
"Isidore Muset, gendarme, deposes that he was called to the house about
three o'clock in the morning, and found some twenty or thirty persons at the
gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. Forced it open, at length, with a
bayonet --not with a crowbar. Had but little difficulty in getting it open, on
account of its being a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom
nor top. The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced --and then
suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or persons) in
great agony --were loud and drawn out, not short and quick. Witness led the
way up stairs. Upon reaching the first landing, heard two voices in loud and
angry contention-the one a gruff voice, the other much shriller --a very
strange voice. Could distinguish some words of the former, which was that of
a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman's voice. Could distinguish
the words 'sacre' and 'diable.' The shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could
not be sure whether it was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make
out what was said, but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the
room and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described them
yesterday.
"Henri Duval, a neighbor, and by trade a silversmith, deposes that he was one
of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates the testimony of
Muset in general. As soon as they forced an entrance, they reclosed the door,
to keep out the crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the
lateness of the hour. The shrill voice, the witness thinks, was that of an Italian.
Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it was a man's voice. It
might have been a woman's. Was not acquainted with the Italian language.
Could not distinguish the words, but was convinced by the intonation that the
speaker was an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed
with both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of either of
the deceased. "--Odenheimer, restaurateur. This witness volunteered his
testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an interpreter. Is a
native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at the time of the shrieks. They
lasted for several minutes --probably ten. They were long and loud --very
awful and distressing. Was one of those who entered the building.
Corroborated the previous evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that
39
the shrill voice was that of a man --of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the
words uttered. They were loud and quick --unequal --spoken apparently in
fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh --not so much shrill as harsh.
Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly 'sacre,' 'diable'
and once 'mon Dieu.'
"Jules Mignaud, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue Deloraine. Is the
elder Mignaud. Madame L'Espanaye had some property. Had opened an
account with his baking house in the spring of the year --(eight years
previously). Made frequent deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing
until the third day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of
4000 francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk sent home with the money.
"Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day in

question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L'Espanaye to her residence
with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the door being opened,
Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his hands one of the bags, while the
old lady relieved him of the other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see
any person in the street at the time. It is a bye-street --very lonely.
William Bird, tailor, deposes that he was one of the party who entered the
house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two years. Was one of the first to
ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of
a Frenchman. Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all.
Heard distinctly 'sacre' and 'mon Dieu.' There was a sound at the moment as
if of several persons struggling --a scraping and scuffling sound. The shrill
voice was very loud --louder than the gruff one. Is sure that it was not the
voice of an Englishman. Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a
woman's voice. Does not understand German.
"Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that the door
of the chamber in which was found the body of Mademoiselle L. was locked
on the inside when the party reached it. Every thing was perfectly silent --no
groans or noises of any kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The
windows, both of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened
from within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked. The
door leading from the front room into the passage was locked, with the key
40
on the inside. A small room in the front of the house, on the fourth story, at
the head of the passage, was open, the door being ajar. This room was
crowded with old beds, boxes, and so forth. These were carefully removed
and searched. There was not an inch of any portion of the house which was
not carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys. The
house was a four story one, with garrets (mansardes). A trap-door on the roof
was nailed down very securely --did not appear to have been opened for
years. The time elapsing between the hearing of the voices in contention and
the breaking open of the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses.
Some made it as short as three minutes --some as long as five. The door was
opened with difficulty.
"Alfonzo Garcio, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue Morgue. Is a

native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered the house. Did not proceed
up stairs. Is nervous, and was apprehensive of the consequences of agitation.
Heard the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.
Could not distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an Englishman
--is sure of this. Does not understand the English language, but judges by the
intonation.
"Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the first to

ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The gruff voice was that of a
Frenchman. Distinguished several words. The speaker appeared to be
expostulating. Could not make out the words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick
and unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general
testimony. Is an Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.
"Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of all the rooms
on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the passage of a human being.
By 'sweeps' were meant cylindrical sweeping-brushes, such as are employed
by those who clean chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every
flue in the house. There is no back passage by which any one could have
descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of Mademoiselle
L'Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that it could not be got down
until four or five of the party united their strength.
41
"Paul Dumas, physician, deposes that he was called to view the bodies about
day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking of the bedstead in the
chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found. The corpse of the young lady was
much bruised and excoriated. The fact that it had been thrust up the chimney
would sufficiently account for these appearances. The throat was greatly
chafed. There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together with
a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression of fingers. The face
was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls protruded. The tongue had been
partially bitten through. A large bruise was discovered upon the pit of the
stomach, produced, apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of
M. Dumas, Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been throttled to death by some
person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was horribly
mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were more or less shattered.
The left tibia much splintered, as well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole
body dreadfully bruised and discolored. It was not possible to say how the
injuries had been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron --a
chair --any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon have produced such results, if
wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman could have inflicted
the blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased, when seen by witness,
was entirely separated from the body, and was also greatly shattered. The
throat had evidently been cut with some very sharp instrument --probably
with a razor.
"Alexandre Etienne, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the bodies.
Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.
"Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other persons

were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in all its
particulars, was never before committed in Paris --if indeed a murder has
been committed at all. The police are entirely at fault --an unusual occurrence
in affairs of this nature. There is not, however, the shadow of a clew
apparent."
The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement
continued in the Quartier St. Roch --that the premises in question had been
carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of witnesses instituted, but all
to no purpose. A postscript, however mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had
42
been arrested and imprisoned --although nothing appeared to criminate him,

beyond the facts already detailed. Dupin seemed singularly interested in the
progress of this affair --at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no
comments. It was only after the announcement that Le Bon had been
imprisoned, that he asked me my opinion respecting the murders.
I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble mystery. I
saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the murderer.
"We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, "by this shell of an
examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for acumen, are cunning,
but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond the method of
the moment. They make a vast parade of measures; but, not unfrequently,
these are so ill adapted to the objects proposed, as to put us in mind of
Monsieur Jourdain's calling for his robe-de-chambre --pour mieux entendre
la musique. The results attained by them are not unfrequently surprising, but,
for the most part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity. When
these qualities are unavailing, their schemes fall. Vidocq, for example, was a
good guesser, and a persevering man. But, without educated thought, he
erred continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He impaired his
vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two
points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the
matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is
not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do
believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where
we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found. The modes
and sources of this kind of error are well typified in the contemplation of the
heavenly bodies. To look at a star by glances --to view it in a side-long way, by
turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of
feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly -
-is to have the best appreciation of its lustre --a lustre which grows dim just
in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays
actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the
more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex
and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish
from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too
direct.
43
"As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for ourselves,
before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry will afford us
amusement," (I thought this an odd term, so applied, but said nothing) "and,
besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service for which I am not ungrateful. We
will go and see the premises with our own eyes. I know G--, the Prefect of
Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary permission."
The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue Morgue.
This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene between the
Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the afternoon when we
reached it; as this quarter is at a great distance from that in which we resided.
The house was readily found; for there were still many persons gazing up at
the closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from the opposite side of the
way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, with a gateway, on one side of which
was a glazed watch-box, with a sliding way, on one si panel in the window,
indicating a loge de concierge. Before going in we walked up the street,
turned down an alley, and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the
building-Dupin, meanwhile, examining the whole neighborhood, as well as
the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no possible
object. Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling, rang,
and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents in charge.
We went up stairs --into the chamber where the body of Mademoiselle
L'Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased still lay. The
disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to exist. I saw nothing
beyond what had been stated in the "Gazette des Tribunaux." Dupin
scrutinized every thing-not excepting the bodies of the victims. We then went
into the other rooms, and into the yard; a gendarme accompanying us
throughout. The examination occupied us until dark, when we took our
departure. On our way home my companion stopped in for a moment at the
office of one of the dally papers.
I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that Fe les
menageais: --for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It was his humor,
now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the murder, until about
noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing
peculiar at the scene of the atrocity.
44
There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar,"

which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.
"No, nothing peculiar," I said; "nothing more, at least, than we both saw
stated in the paper."
"The 'Gazette,'" he replied, "has not entered, I fear, into the unusual horror
of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this print. It appears to me that
this mystery is considered insoluble, for the very reason which should cause
it to be regarded as easy of solution --I mean for the outre character of its
features. The police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive --not
for the murder itself --but for the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled,
too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in
contention, with the facts that no one was discovered up stairs but the
assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and that there were no means of
egress without the notice of the party ascending. The wild disorder of the
room; the corpse thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the
frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady; these considerations with
those just mentioned, and others which I need not mention, have sufficed to
paralyze the powers, by putting completely at fault the boasted acumen, of
the government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common error of
confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from
the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its search for
the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should not be so
much asked 'what has occurred,' as 'what has occurred that has never
occurred before.' In fact, the facility with which I shall arrive, or have arrived,
at the solution of this mystery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility
in the eyes of the police."
I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.
"I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door of our apartment
--"I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the perpetrator of
these butcheries, must have been in some measure implicated in their
perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes committed, it is probable
that he is innocent. I hope that I am right in this supposition; for upon it I build
my expectation of reading the entire riddle. I look for the man here --in this
45
room --every moment. It is true that he may not arrive; but the probability is
that he will. Should he come, it will be necessary to detain him. Here are
pistols; and we both know how to use them when occasion demands their
use."
I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I heard, while
Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have already spoken of his
abstract manner at such times. His discourse was addressed to myself; but his
voice, although by no means loud, had that intonation which is commonly
employed in speaking to some one at a great distance. His eyes, vacant in
expression, regarded only the wall.
"That the voices heard in contention," he said, "by the party upon the stairs,
were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully proved by the
evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the question whether the old lady
could have first destroyed the daughter, and afterward have committed
suicide. I speak of this point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength
of Madame L'Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of
thrusting her daughter's corpse up the chimney as it was found; and the
nature of the wounds upon her own person entirely preclude the idea of self-
destruction. Murder, then, has been committed by some third party; and the
voices of this third party were those heard in contention. Let me now advert
--not to the whole testimony respecting these voices --but to what was
peculiar in that testimony. Did you observe anything peculiar about it?"
I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the gruff voice to
be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in regard to the shrill,
or, as one individual termed it, the harsh voice.
"That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, "but it was not the peculiarity of
the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive. Yet there was something
to be observed. The witnesses, as you remark, agreed about the gruff voice;
they were here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiarity is
not that they disagreed --but that, while an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard,
a Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted to describe it, each one spoke of it
as that of a foreigner. Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his own
countrymen. Each likens it --not to the voice of an individual of any nation
46
with whose language he is conversant --but the converse. The Frenchman

supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and 'might have distinguished some words
had he been acquainted with the Spanish.' The Dutchman maintains it to have
been that of a Frenchman; but we find it stated that 'not understanding
French this witness was examined through an interpreter.' The Englishman
thinks it the voice of a German, and 'does not understand German.' The
Spaniard 'is sure' that it was that of an Englishman, but 'judges by the
intonation' altogether, 'as he has no knowledge of the English.' The Italian
believes it the voice of a Russian, but 'has never conversed with a native of
Russia.' A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the first, and is positive
that the voice was that of an Italian; but, not being cognizant of that tongue,
is, like the Spaniard, 'convinced by the intonation.' Now, how strangely
unusual must that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this
could have been elicited! --in whose tones, even, denizens of the five great
divisions of Europe could recognise nothing familiar! You will say that it might
have been the voice of an Asiatic --of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans
abound in Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call
your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one witness 'harsh
rather than shrill.' It is represented by two others to have been 'quick and
unequal' No words --no sounds resembling words --were by any witness
mentioned as distinguishable.
"I know not," continued Dupin, "what impression I may have made, so far,
upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that legitimate
deductions even from this portion of the testimony --the portion respecting
the gruff and shrill voices --are in themselves sufficient to engender a
suspicion which should give direction to all farther progress in the
investigation of the mystery. I said 'legitimate deductions;' but my meaning is
not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that the deductions are the sole
proper ones, and that the suspicion arises inevitably from them as the single
result. What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I merely wish
you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a
definite form --a certain tendency --to my inquiries in the chamber.
"Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What shall we first
seek here? The means of egress employed by the murderers. It is not too
much to say that neither of us believe in praeternatural events. Madame and
47
Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the

deed were material, and escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is
but one mode of reasoning upon the point, and that mode must lead us to a
definite decision. --Let us examine, each by each, the possible means of
egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room where Mademoiselle
L'Espanaye was found, or at least in the room adjoining, when the party
ascended the stairs. It is then only from these two apartments that we have
to seek issues. The police have laid bare the floors, the ceilings, and the
masonry of the walls, in every direction. No secret issues could have escaped
their vigilance. But, not trusting to their eyes, I examined with my own. There
were, then, no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into the
passage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn to the
chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some eight or ten feet above
the hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent, the body of a large cat.
The impossibility of egress, by means already stated, being thus absolute, we
are reduced to the windows. Through those of the front room no one could
have escaped without notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers
must have passed, then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to
this conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part, as
reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities. It is only left for
us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities' are, in reality, not such.
"There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by

furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other is hidden from
view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is thrust close up against it.
The former was found securely fastened from within. It resisted the utmost
force of those who endeavored to raise it. A large gimlet-hole had been
pierced in its frame to the left, and a very stout nail was found fitted therein,
nearly to the head. Upon examining the other window, a similar nail was seen
similarly fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The
police were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these
directions. And, therefore, it was thought a matter of supererogation to
withdraw the nails and open the windows.
"My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the
reason I have just given --because here it was, I knew, that all apparent
impossibilities must be proved to be not such in reality.
48
"I proceeded to think thus --a posteriori. The murderers did escape from one
of these windows. This being so, they could not have re-fastened the sashes
from the inside, as they were found fastened; --the consideration which put
a stop, through its obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter.
Yet the sashes were fastened. They must, then, have the power of fastening
themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. I stepped to the
unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some difficulty, and
attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my efforts, as I had anticipated. A
concealed spring must, I now knew, exist; and this corroboration of my idea
convinced me that my premises, at least, were correct, however mysterious
still appeared the circumstances attending the nails. A careful search soon
brought to light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the
discovery, forebore to upraise the sash.
"I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person passing out
through this window might have reclosed it, and the spring would have
caught --but the nail could not have been replaced. The conclusion was plain,
and again narrowed in the field of my investigations. The assassins must have
escaped through the other window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each
sash to be the same, as was probable, there must be found a difference
between the nails, or at least between the modes of their fixture. Getting
upon the sacking of the bedstead, I looked over the headboard minutely at
the second casement. Passing my hand down behind the board, I readily
discovered and pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed, identical in
character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail. It was as stout as the other,
and apparently fitted in the same manner --driven in nearly up to the head.
"You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have
misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting phrase, I had
not been once 'at fault.' The scent had never for an instant been lost. There
was no flaw in any link of the chain. I had traced the secret to its ultimate
result, --and that result was the nail. It had, I say, in every respect, the
appearance of its fellow in the other window; but this fact was an absolute
nullity (conclusive as it might seem to be) when compared with the
consideration that here, at this point, terminated the clew. 'There must be
something wrong,' I said, 'about the nail.' I touched it; and the head, with
about a quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of
49
the shank was in the gimlet-hole, where it had been broken off. The fracture
was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with rust), and had apparently
been accomplished by the blow of a hammer, which had partially imbedded,
in the top of the bottom sash, the head portion of the nail. now carefully
replaced this head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the
resemblance to a perfect nail was complete-the fissure was invisible. Pressing
the spring, I gently raised the sash for a few inches; the head went up with it,
remaining firm in its bed. I closed the window, and the semblance of the
whole nail was again perfect.
"The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped through the
window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own accord upon his exit
(or perhaps purposely closed) it had become fastened by the spring; and it
was the retention of this spring which had been mistaken by the police for
that of the nail, --farther inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.
"The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I had been
satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About five feet and a half
from the casement in question there runs a lightning-rod. From this rod it
would have been impossible for any one to reach the window itself, to say
nothing of entering it. I observed, however, that shutters of the fourth story
were of the peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters ferrades --a kind rarely
employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very old mansions at
Lyons and Bordeaux. They are in the form of an ordinary door, (a single, not
a folding door) except that the upper half is latticed or worked in open trellis
--thus affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the present instance these
shutters are fully three feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the
rear of the house, they were both about half open --that is to say, they stood
off at right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well as
myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking at these
ferrades in the line of their breadth (as they must have done), they did not
perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all events, failed to take it into due
consideration. In fact, having once satisfied themselves that no egress could
have been made in this quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very
cursory examination. It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging
to the window at the head of the bed, would, if swung fully back to the wall,
reach to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by
50
exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into

the window, from the rod, might have been thus effected. --By reaching to
the distance of two feet and a half (we now suppose the shutter open to its
whole extent) a robber might have taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work.
Letting go, then, his hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the
wall, and springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to
close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might have swung
himself into the room.
"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a very unusual
degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous and so difficult a feat.
It is my design to show you, first, that the thing might possibly have been
accomplished: --but, secondly and chiefly, I wish to impress upon your
understanding the very extraordinary --the almost praeternatural character
of that agility which could have accomplished it.
"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make out my
case' I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a full estimation of the
activity required in this matter. This may be the practice in law, but it is not
the usage of reason. My ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate
purpose is to lead you to place in juxta-position that very unusual activity of
which I have just spoken, with that very peculiar shrill (or harsh) and unequal
voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to agree, and
in whose utterance no syllabification could be detected."
At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin

flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension,
without power to comprehend --as men, at times, find themselves upon the
brink of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. My
friend went on with his discourse.
"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the mode of
egress to that of ingress. It was my design to suggest that both were effected
in the same manner, at the same point. Let us now revert to the interior of
the room. Let us survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it
is said, had been rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within
them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere guess --a very silly one --and
51
no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the drawers were not
all these drawers had originally contained? Madame L'Espanaye and her
daughter lived an exceedingly retired life --saw no company --seldom went
out --had little use for numerous changes of habiliment. Those found were at
least of as good quality as any likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief
had taken any, why did he not take the best --why did he not take all? In a
word, why did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself
with a bundle of linen? The gold was abandoned. Nearly the whole sum
mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon
the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts the blundering
idea of motive, engendered in the brains of the police by that portion of the
evidence which speaks of money delivered at the door of the house.
Coincidences ten times as remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and
murder committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to
all of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class
of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of
probabilities --that theory to which the most glorious objects of human
research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration. In the present
instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three days before
would have formed something more than a coincidence. It would have been
corroborative of this idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the
case, if we are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, we must also
imagine the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold
and his motive together.
"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your
attention --that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that startling absence
of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as this --let us glance at the
butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and
thrust up a chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such
modes of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of the murdered.
In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will that there was
something excessively outre --something altogether irreconcilable with our
common notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the
most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that strength
52
which could have thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the
united vigor of several persons was found barely sufficient to drag it down!
"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most

marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses --very thick tresses --of grey
human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are aware of the great
force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or thirty hairs
together. You saw the locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a
hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp --sure
token of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps
half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut,
but the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere
razor. I wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the
bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur
Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that
they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument; and so far thesegentlemen
are very correct. The obtuse instrument was clearly the stone pavement in
the yard, upon which the victim had fallen from the window which looked in
upon the bed. This idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police
for the same reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them --because,
by the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed
against the possibility of the windows have ever been opened at all.
If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected upon the
odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to combine the ideas of
an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery
without motive, a grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and
a voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all
distinct or intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What
impression have I made upon your fancy?"
I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A madman," I
said, "has done this deed --some raving maniac, escaped from a neighboring
Maison de Sante."
"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But the voices of
madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to tally with that
53
peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of some nation, and their
language, however incoherent in its words, has always the coherence of
syllabification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my
hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of
Madame L'Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it."
"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual --this is no

human hair."
"I have not asserted that it is," said he; "but, before we decide this point, I
wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here traced upon this paper. It is
a fac-simile drawing of what has been described in one portion of the
testimony as 'dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails,' upon the
throat of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and in another, (by Messrs. Dumas and
Etienne,) as a 'series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers.'
"You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the paper upon the
table before us, "that this drawing gives the idea of a firm and fixed hold.
There is no slipping apparent. Each finger has retained --possibly until the
death of the victim --the fearful grasp by which it originally imbedded itself.
Attempt, now, to place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective
impressions as you see them."
I made the attempt in vain.
"We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. "The paper is
spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is cylindrical. Here is
a billet of wood, the circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap
the drawing around it, and try the experiment again."
I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.
"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."
"Read now," replied Dupin, "this passage from Cuvier." It was a minute
anatomical and generally descriptive account of the large fulvous Ourang-
Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic stature, the prodigious
54
strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these
mammalia are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of
the murder at once.
"The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of reading, "is in exact
accordance with this drawing, I see that no animal but an Ourang-Outang, of
the species here mentioned, could have impressed the indentations as you
have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair, too, is identical in character with
that of the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the particulars
of this frightful mystery. Besides, there were two voices heard in contention,
and one of them was unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman."
True; and you will remember an expression attributed almostunanimously, by

the evidence, to this voice, --the expression, 'mon Dieu!' This, under the
circumstances, has been justly characterized by one of the witnesses
(Montani, the confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or
expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes
of a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the murder. It is
possible --indeed it is far more than probable --that he was innocent of all
participation in the bloody transactions which took place. The Ourang-Outang
may have escaped from him. He may have traced it to the chamber; but,
under the agitating circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-
captured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses-for I have no right
to call them more --since the shades of reflection upon which they are based
are scarcely of sufficient depth to be appreciable by my own intellect, and
since I could not pretend to make them intelligible to the understanding of
another. We will call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the
Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this
advertisement, which I left last night, upon our return home, at the office of 'Le
Monde,' (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and much sought by sailors,)
will bring him to our residence." He handed me a paper, and I read thus:
Caught --In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the --inst., (the
morning of the murder,) a very large, tawny Ourang-Outang of the Bornese
species. The owner, (who is ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese
vessel,) may have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and
55
paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call at No.--, Rue -
-, Faubourg St. Germain --au troisieme.
"How was it possible," I asked, "that you should know the man to be a sailor,
and belonging to a Maltese vessel?" "I do not know it," said Dupin. "I am not
sure of it. Here, however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and
from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair in one
of those long queues of which sailors are so fond. Moreover, this knot is one
which few besides sailors can tie, and is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the
ribbon up at the foot of the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either
of the deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this ribbon,
that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel, still I can have
done no harm in saying what I did in the advertisement. If I am in error, he
will merely suppose that I have been misled by some circumstance into which
he will not take the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is gained.
Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally
hesitate about replying to the advertisement --about demanding the Ourang-
Outang. He will reason thus: --'I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-Outang
is of great value --to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself --why should
I lose it through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It
was found in the Bois de Boulogne --at a vast distance from the scene of that
butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast should have done
the deed? The police are at fault --they have failed to procure the slightest
clew. Should they even trace the animal, it would be impossible to prove me
cognizant of the murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that
cognizance. Above all, I am known. The advertiser designates me as the
possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his knowledge may extend.
Should I avoid claiming a property of so great value, which it is known that I
possess, I will render the animal, at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy
to attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer the
advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until this matter has
blown over.
At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.
"Be ready," said Dupin, "with your pistols, but neither use them nor show
them until at a signal from myself."
56
The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor had entered,
without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the staircase. Now,
however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard him descending. Dupin
was moving quickly to the door, when we again heard him coming up. He did
not turn back a second time, but stepped up with decision and rapped at the
door of our chamber.
"Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.
A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently, --a tall, stout, and muscular-looking
person, with a certain dare-devil expression of countenance, not altogether
unprepossessing. His face, greatly sunburnt, was more than half hidden by
whisker and mustachio. He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared
to be otherwise unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us "good evening,"
in French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were still
sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.
Sit down, my friend," said Dupin. "I suppose you have called about the
Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him; a
remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old do you
suppose him to be?"
The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some
intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:
"I have no way of telling --but he can't be more than four or five years old.
Have you got him here?"
"Oh no; we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a livery stable
in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the morning. Of course you
are prepared to identify the property?"
"To be sure I am, sir."
"I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin.
57
"I don't mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing, sir," said the
man. "Couldn't expect it. Am very willing to pay a reward for the finding of
the animal --that is to say, any thing in reason."
"Well," replied my friend, "that is all very fair, to be sure. Let me think! --what
should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward shall be this. You shall give me all
the information in your power about these murders in the Rue Morgue."
Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just as quietly,
too, he walked toward the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. He
then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it, without the least flurry, upon
the table.
The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with suffocation. He

started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the next moment he fell back
into his seat, trembling violently, and with the countenance of death itself. He
spoke not a word. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart.
"My friend," said Dupin, in a kind tone, "you are alarming yourself
unnecessarily --you are indeed. We mean you no harm whatever. I pledge you
the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we intend you no injury.
I perfectly well know that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue
Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure
implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know that I have
had means of information about this matter --means of which you could
never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus. You have done nothing
which you could have avoided --nothing, certainly, which renders you
culpable. You were not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed
with impunity. You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for
concealment. On the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor
to confess all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with
that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator."
The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great measure, while
Dupin uttered these words; but his original boldness of bearing was all gone.
58
"So help me God," said he, after a brief pause, "I will tell you all I know about
this affair; --but I do not expect you to believe one half I say --I would be a fool
indeed if I did. Still, I am innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it."
What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a voyage to the
Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at Borneo, and
passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion
had captured the Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his
own exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the intractable
ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in
lodging it safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract toward
himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded,
until such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received from a
splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell it. Returning home from
some sailors' frolic on the night, or rather in the morning of the murder, he
found the beast occupying his own bed-room, into which it had broken from a
closet adjoining, where it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in
hand, and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the
operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master
through the key-hole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a
weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it,
the man, for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been
accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest moods, by the
use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon sight of it, the Ourang-Outang
sprang at once through the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and thence,
through a window, unfortunately open, into the street.
The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand, occasionally
stopping to look back and gesticulate at its pursuer, until the latter had nearly
come up with it. It then again made off. In this manner the chase continued
for a long time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three
o'clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue,
the fugitive's attention was arrested by a light gleaming from the open
window of Madame L'Espanaye's chamber, in the fourth story of her house.
Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning-rod, clambered up with
inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back
against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the headboard
59
of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The shutter was kicked
open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered the room.
The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had strong
hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely escape from the trap
into which it had ventured, except by the rod, where it might be intercepted
as it came down. On the other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to
what it might do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to
follow the fugitive. A lightning-rod is ascended without difficulty, especially
by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as high as the window, which lay far to
his left, his career was stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to
reach over so as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this glimpse
he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those
hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled from slumber the
inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, habited
in their night clothes, had apparently been arranging some papers in the iron
chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of the
room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. The victims must
have been sitting with their backs toward the window; and, from the time
elapsing between the ingress of the beast and the screams, it seems probable
that it was not immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would
naturally have been attributed to the wind.
As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame L'Espanaye by
the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing it,) and was flourishing
the razor about her face, in imitation of the motions of a barber. The daughter
lay prostrate and motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of
the old lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the effect of
changing the probably pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of
wrath. With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her
head from her body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy.
Gnashing its teeth, and flashing fire from its eves, it flew upon the body of the
girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat, retaining its grasp until she
expired. Its wandering and wild glances fell at this moment upon the head of
the bed, over which the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just
discernible. The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreaded
whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved
60
punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and skipped

about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing down and
breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead.
In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the
chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it immediately
hurled through the window headlong.
As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor
shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering down it, hurried
at once home --dreading the consequences of the butchery, and gladly
abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang.
The words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman's
exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish jabberings
of the brute.
I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have escaped from
the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of the door. It must have
closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently caught by the
owner himself, who obtained for it a very large sum at the Jardin des Plantes.
Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with
some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This
functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal
his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a
sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his own business.
"Let them talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply. "Let
him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am satisfied with having defeated
him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this
mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in
truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his
wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the
Goddess Laverna, --or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is
a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,
by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has
'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas.'"*
* Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloise.
61
62
THE FATHER OF ALL DETECTIVES

Although new generations after Poe's academic 'resurrection around 1920'
have come to view Poe as the father of a new school of literature, based on
the ancient axiom ‘art for art’s sake’, his peers – including Griswold – excluded
Poe from their literary clique. Poe loved sounds, sliding sounds like in
‘Annabel Lee’, and used them to form melodies in poetry. Emerson, who
thought literature should be a spontaneous outpouring of the soul as such
should elevate the reader, called Poe a ‘jingle man’. Poe's ideas on rhetoric
kept him on the outside of established literary society frequented by people
like Griswold. But how innovative Poe was, and how far ahead of his time, is
recognised today and affirmed more loudly and clearly.
Poe is an undisputed icon of modern pop culture, known today as the father
of the literary horror genre, his name is the very top as evidenced by countless
posthumous editions of his work. Hundreds of films have been made that are
inspired by his work, hundreds of songs and albums by classical, but also pop,
rock, metal, punk artists, numerous comics, album covers, master’s theses
and doctorates, TV series, literary works, you name it. His name is permanent,
on the pedestal of Horror and all that surrounds it. It is interesting to note Poe's
statement that he actually wanted to use his unique writing style to write works
closer to science-fiction and even fantasy, but the readers demanded blood,
fear, mystery, cruel murders and creepy stories. Thus, Poe was almost forced
into becoming the founder ¬– and icon – of horror, for his stories succeeded in
deeply disturbing the readers and evoking from them the deepest emotions.
His legacy extends so far that even the producers of the ‘The Simpsons’, one of
the most famous cartoons of all time, included him in their ‘Halloween Special’
episode based on his poem ‘The Raven’ – but that’s a drop in the ocean.
However, all the accolades he receives cannot at all obscure the great
injustice that was done to him throughout history, and this injustice may be
the biggest one connected with his name. Remember his only novel, ‘The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’ from 1838 – remember what
you thought? Yes, many of you, including myself, exclaimed ‘well, this is just
a horror version of Jules Verne; a wonderful and addictive adventure story
63
about a trip to the South Pole, read in a single sitting – and its end leads you
to madness when you realize that the story is actually – unfinished’. You might
be even more intrigued by the fact that Jules Verne published his first works
only thirty years after the publication of this story and fifteen years after Poe's
death, and that one of the first books he wrote was ‘The Arctic Sphinx’, a story
that continued on the ending of Poe's unfinished novel. Verne, so fascinated
with Poe, simply had to finish it. The entire branch of science-fiction
adventure stories actually originated with Poe, who hadn’t stopped with this
novel alone. Verne also adopted Poe's ideas of ballooning, whether into space
or around the world, as the basis for his most famous works.
In Poe's dialogue ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’, he tells us a Judgment

Day story. It is in fact a conversation between human souls in heaven after
the great destruction of the world, where Poe shows his readers the final days
of planet Earth: starting a month before and the first time they see a slightly
brighter star in the sky, then two weeks before, as they realize it is a comet
chasing the Earth in order to destroy it, and the last days before impact –
climate change, people panicking, everything else, to the point of complete
destruction of the earth. At the same time, the story offers some ideas about
life after death. A work of overwhelming genius and dreaminess for the time
the story was written. In ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’, Poe
depicts another ingenious talk between angels, where he reveals to the
readers the secret of the beginning of the world and its disappearance – the
first vision of the end of the world in literature...
If you thought that Jules Verne was the first to write about a journey to the
moon in his famous book, you are mistaken. Poe did so much earlier in his
story ‘The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfall’. For the first time in the
world, a journey into space was described in a more serious scientific manner,
and it is the first literature to describe the phenomenon of polar light in more
detail, as well as an encounter with aliens. ‘Mellonta Tauta’ or ‘Things of the
Future’ is the fantastic story of a balloon journey, which allegorically tells of
the unknown fate of humanity’s future and human society. It is the first
example of nonutopian literary thought, and generally the first image in
fiction of a complex future society, which is radically different from Poe’s
time, but still familiar to us today. It bears no resemblance to earlier ‘fairy
tales’ about a future like ‘L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais’ by Louis-Sébastien
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Mercier in 1771, or to catastrophic visions like ‘The Last Man’, a story written
in 1826 by Mary Shelley. Poe's vision includes many scientific shifts as well as
social and historical changes from the society of today.
In the story ‘M.S. Found in a Bottle’ Poe brings us a fantastic tale about
Antarctica, written at a time when science didn't have any precise
geographical knowledge of the area... The story ‘The Facts in the Case of M.
Valdemar’ is a fantastical SF idea of mesmerizing (medical hypnosis) of people
on their death bed, in order that when they die they would remain in a
hypnotic trance, unaware they are dead and able to speak to whoever
mesmerized them from the other side… from the world of the dead. The
descriptions are written in an almost scientific manner, details presented as
realistically as possible. The stories ‘Mesmeric Revelation’ and ‘The Power of
Words’ are continuations to this. ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ is the first
time the concept of physical time travel was described in literary thought, while
Poe's essay ‘Maelzel's Chess Player’ is the first to discuss robots and robotics,
more than a century before Isaac Asimov. Even then, Poe was presenting some
interesting ideas about automata, and he undoubtedly influenced many later
writings on robots and computers. The famous ‘Ligeia’ story is a fantastic story
about reincarnation and the idea that death can be overcome by willpower, and
the aforementioned ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’, which
tells the story of a trip to the South Pole, is full of SF elements and lost
civilizations... To round off this summary of his writing, I would point out a quote
from Michael E. Grost, who says: “Poe's several tales of balloon and sea travel
approach the borderline of science fiction, dealing with scenes that were
fantastic, or beyond the bounds of everyday reality.”
Poe's trademark is that he almost always emphasized scientific credibility in

works of this sort, thereby influencing the further treatment of space travel
and the whole of science fiction, making him one of the country's architects
of the SF genre. Despite the contributions of later SF pioneers and greats,
Poe's works are viewed as the first real crystallization of the SF genre in the
format we know today. A genre previously dominated by fantastical travel,
utopian thinking, glimpses of the future and Gothic science experiments, was
transformed by Poe has transformed into modern SF. Just compare Edward
Page Mitchell's works ‘The Ablest Man in the World’ or ‘The Tachypomp’ and
you will clearly see the impact of Poe and his essay ‘Maezel's Chess Player’.
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The concept of time travel in ‘The Clock That Went Backwards’ is very much like
Poe's in ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’. Although neither author’s stories are
logically as consistent as the stories of such journeys in modern SF, they clearly
show their origins. H. P. Lovecraft deliberately imitated Poe’s writing and
admitted this unapologetically. Lovecraft’s works most reflect the influence and
writing technique of Poe’s ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar’.
Poe's influence can also be seen in the work of several later writers, up to the
present day. Kipling's story of a strange, future world ‘With the Night Mail’
from 1905 was most likely inspired by ‘Mellonta Tauta’. Aside from the huge
balloons and the replacement of democracy with autocracy, the future we
face is in many ways different from the present. Kipling borrowed heavily
from Poe’s descriptions of storms both in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and
in ‘Hans Pfaall’ when describing his own.
But all this is merely scratching the surface. In addition to phrenology, a

pseudoscientific branch he also frequently used in his works, adventurist and
surreal works like ‘A Descent into the Maelstrom’, ‘The Gold-Bug’ and many
others contain various flavours. In ‘The Gold-Bug’ Poe showed all his
imagination regarding cryptography and made many readers interested in
trying it themselves.
Poe is considered by some to be the greatest cryptographer of all time. For a

time, he dealt with his money problems by solving and designing cryptograms
for Graham's Magazine and Alexander's Weekly Messenger. But he was really
just using diverting attention from the simple solving method, even
elaborating on this in the story ‘The Stolen Letter’. Readers would be taken
aback by seemingly unsolvable puzzles, which Poe would then easily solve.
For most people, even today cryptography is still an unfathomable skill of
reading intelligently ‘locked’, mysterious and hidden texts with obscure
characters. As a study of secrets, it is therefore mystical in itself. Since
cryptography was unknown to the public in Poe's time, he made good use of
this, having fun with regular folk and enjoying the spotlight. In the
aforementioned ‘The Gold-Bug’, exemplifies it perfectly, using it in many
other works and even in the novel about Artur Gordon Pym. Cryptography
and riddles in modern literature, science fiction, adventure stories with
elements of SF, robotics in literature and related genres… Poe laid firm
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foundations for it all. Through centuries of written history, it was always

possible to find some elements of these, but Poe was the first to make it
consistent and accessible to all, as claimed later by the preeminent writers of
these genres and sub-genres. His final work, a poem in prose named ‘Eureka’,
was created shortly before his death and is a story in itself – perhaps his most
mature work, in which he left a last will and testament of sorts. Although
‘Eureka’ is mostly considered a literary work, some of Poe's ideas in it seem
to predict actual scientific discoveries and theories of the 20th century. A
critical analysis of the scientific content of ‘Eureka’ reveals a non-causal
correspondence with modern cosmology because of the assumption of how
the Universe developed, but precludes an anachronistic expectation of
relativistic concepts such as black holes. This essay is unusually
transcendental given Poe's known disdain for the movement. He considered
‘Eureka’ to be his greatest achievement, claiming it was more important than
the discovery of gravity. In the chronicle of science fiction in nineteenth-
century literature, Poe is rightly the most cited author.
Mystery and science fiction as practiced by Poe were acknowledged by realist

critics, and as a pioneer in both genres, he devoted almost half of his work to
them. However, the favourite works in the realists’ circles were ‘The Fall of
the House of Usher’, ‘Ligeia’, ‘William Wilson’ and similar, as they came
closest to conventional realist fiction, more concerned with psychological
portraiture and the study of human relations. Unfortunately, this deliberately
emphasized acts that fit certain conventions of the so-called mainstream
literary thought which has little place for mystery. The fantasy in them is
limited only to the supernatural, without excessive interference of science,
while other, much more complex and boldly written works have been
completely neglected. Poe, obviously, didn't care in the slightest. In addition
to his classic horror stories, he took his mysteries to another ‘battlefield’, was
brand new to him and the entire literary world.
Detective stories! Poe is definitely the father of the detective story, and thus
of crime stories. Almost all critics will agree that ‘The Murders in the Rue
Morgue’ can be considered to be the world's first detective story, and that C.
Auguste Dupin, a brilliant Paris detective, is the prototype of all world-famous
detectives, most notably Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Both Arthur
Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie drew from the same source: Poe's stories,
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published in April 1841. The profession of private detective was a relatively

new and unknown thing that year, and it is believed that Poe was inspired by
the 1828-1829 publishing of the memoirs of former criminal François-Eugène
Vidocq, the man who founded and ran ‘Sûreté’, the world's first detective
agency, established in Paris in 1817. As well as in Rue Morgue, Poe's fictional
Paris detective C. Auguste Dupin also appeared in the brilliant short story ‘The
Purloined Letter’ and the lengthy but less well-received ‘The Mystery of Marie
Roget’. C. Auguste Dupin is a Parisian gentleman who takes on detective work
more for fun, and uses his specific method of analysis to help the police solve
the most serious crimes when they are ‘up against a wall’. Dupin is portrayed
as an eccentric amateur poet, and is a strange prototype for a hero: prefers
to work at night or in complete darkness, by the light of a candle, and smokes
his meerschaum pipe while thinking. In some ways, he is the dark predecessor
of Sherlock Holmes, who works with an unnamed assistant like Holmes works
with Dr. Watson. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ was published in 1841 in
the Philadelphia literary journal ‘Graham's Magazine’, where Poe was also an
editor. He later published it in his book ‘Tales of Mystery and the Imagination’.
The story was a true success, and many films, series, songs, plays and books
have been inspired by it.
The following information is available on Wikipedia about Poe's inspiration

for creating Detective Dupin's character: “Poe may have gotten the last name
‘Dupin’ from a character in a series of stories first published Burton's
Gentleman's Magazine in 1828 called ‘Unpublished passages in the Life of
Vidocq, the French Minister of Police’. The name also implies ‘duping’ or
deception, a skill Dupin shows off in ‘The Purloined Letter’. Detective fiction,
however, had no real precedent and the word detective had not yet been
coined when Poe first introduced Dupin. The closest example in fiction is
Voltaire's Zadig (1748), in which the main character performs similar feats of
analysis, themselves borrowed from ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’, an
Italian rendition of Amir Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht. In writing the series of Dupin
tales, Poe capitalized on contemporary popular interest. His use of an
orangutan in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ was inspired by the popular
reaction to an orangutan that had been on display at the Masonic Hall in
Philadelphia in July 1839. In ‘The Mystery of Mary Rogêt’, he used a true story
that had become of national interest.“
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I wrote earlier that C. Auguste Dupin served as a template for all later
detective stories. Arthur Conan Doyle himself once wrote: “Each [of Poe's
detective stories] is the root of which a whole literature has developed...
Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?”
In the first book about Sherlock Holmes ‘A Study in Scarlet’ from 1887, Dr.
Watson compares Holmes to Dupin, to which the latter replies: “No doubt
you think you are complimenting me... In my opinion, Dupin was a very
inferior fellow… He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no
means such a phenomenon as Poe appears to imagine”, alluding to part of
the story in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, where Dupin deduces what his
friend is thinking about in spite of walking in silence for 15 minutes. Holmes
points out, “That trick of his breaking into his friend's thoughts with an
apropos remark... is really very showy and superficial,” but he goes on to
perform the same trick on Watson in the story ‘The Adventure of the
Cardboard Box’. Even the famous Fyodor Dostoevsky called Poe an
“extremely talented writer” and positively praised his detective stories. The
character of Porfiry Petrovitch in Dostoevsky's colossal novel ‘Crime and
Punishment’ was created, according to Fyodor, under the influence of Dupin.
Dupin’s character helped establish a genre of detective fiction, different from
mystery, with emphasis on analysis rather than trial and error.
Brander Matthews wrote: “The true detective story as Poe conceived it is not
in the mystery itself, but rather in the successful steps whereby the analytic
observer is enabled to solve the problem that might be dismissed as beyond
human elucidation.” More specifically, in the three stories in which Dolphin
stars, Poe created three subtypes of detective fiction that established the
models for all future stories of that kind: the physical type (‘The Murders in
the Rue Morgue’), the mental (‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’) and a blended
version of the two (‘The Purloined Letter’). Dupin did not live up to just three
stories written by Poe. His character has been taken over by many authors
and given life in countless other literary works and films, some going so far to
turn Dupin into Poe.
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POE – LEGACY OF THE MIST

One thing can be said for sure... Poe was the original Goth His poetry and
fantastic, timeless stories were no less interesting than his life, as was the
mystery surrounding his death, which still seems so unfathomable today. The
two hundredth anniversary of Poe's birth was celebrated around the world in
2009, and October 7th marked 171 years since his death. In his brief life, Poe
left behind many poems and short stories, literary reviews, newspaper
articles, letters, and an ultimately unfinished novel. His remarkable influence
is felt throughout the year in all branches of the arts, from classical music,
even inadvertently to the works of former pop princess Britney Spears. As
well as the deserving Muse of horror, superficial biographies don’t inform us
that Poe is practically the founder of the SF genre, as well as detective and
crime stories, and travel adventure stories. Poe was among the first writers
to “visit” the South Pole for a month and meet aliens, write about the collapse
of the earth caused by the impact of a rushing comet, while his detective C.
Auguste Dupin and his bumbling sidekick are forerunners of the popular
Sherlock Holmes. Legendary composers like Debussy and Rachmaninoff have
composed under Poe's influence, but you can also find Poe in modern music
– rock, alternative, hip hop, folk, pop, punk and metal. Numerous TV series,
films, comics and plays have been adaptations of his works, and the list of
celebrities who frequently quote and adapt his works and discuss his life is
lengthy. Suffice it to say that Poe is an unquestionable legend and icon who
will permanently inspire numerous artists, proving that those who chose to
falsify his biography did not succeed in their plans.
Since the mid-19th century, the intersection of the supernatural and

symbolism has fascinated French and Russian composers who have
experimented with literary narration and the poetry of texts. Claude Debussy
often referred to himself as Poe's musical successor. He began work on an
opera based on ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, and the unfinished and
reconstructed version was performed in 1977 at Yale University and recorded
and released in 1984. Debussy also left an unfinished opera based on Poe's
work ‘The Devil in the Belfry’. Two members of his musical circle were also
inspired by Poe's works: Florent Schmitt wrote, ‘Le palais hante’ from Poe's
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poem ‘The Haunted Palace’ in 1904, and Andre Caplet wrote ‘Conte
fantastique’ for the harp, published in 1924.
Sergei Rachmaninoff composed a choral symphony for the Russian translation

of the poem ‘Bells’ in 1913, going on to cite it as his favourite composition in
his career. English composer Joseph Holbrooke composed a symphony based
on ‘The Raven’, which debuted in 1900, and continued with a similar
treatment of ‘The Bells’ in 1903. Holbrooke also wrote music for a ballet
performance of ‘Masque of the Red Death’, and used many more aspects of
Poe’s work in his later compositions. Minimalist Philip Glass wrote an opera
based on ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, which made its debut in 1989.
Choral composer Jonathan Adams has set three Poe works to music ‘Hymn’,
‘Evening Star’ and ‘Eldorado’ for the SATB Choir in 1993, ‘Annabel Lee’ in 1995
and ‘Alone’ in 1997. In the same year, Einojuhani Rautavaara composed a
choral and orchestra fantasy called 'On the Last Frontier’, based on the work
‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’. In 2005, composer
Damon Ferante and librettist Daniel Mark Epstein wrote a two-act lyrical
opera about young Poe's fantasies named ‘Jefferson and Poe’. Also, two
operas ‘Ligeia’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ were created nine years earlier,
written by Augusta Read Thomas and Bruce Adolphe.
Since the early 20th century, many popular musicians have used Poe's
symbolism and lyrics in their songs, or composed songs based on his works.
‘Annabel Lee’ was used in Frankie Laine's 1957 song which was later covered
by Jim Reeves (1963), Joan Baez sang a version set to Don Dilworth’s
composition in 1967, Spanish pop band Radio Futura have their own, etc. It
would be nigh impossible to list the many Poe-influenced musicians and
genres I discovered while researching this book online and off, so here are
just a few of the most striking examples. Bob Dylan made a number of
references to ‘Rue Morgue Avenue’ in his 1965 song ‘Just Like Tom Thumb's
Blues’. In 1981, Iron Maiden recorded ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and
‘Genghis Khan’ for their second album ‘Killers’. The entire concept of ‘Killers’
as an album alludes to Poe's famous story ‘Man of the Crowd’. Their 2003
cover of ‘Dance of Death’ also strongly alludes to Poe’s ‘Masque of the Red
Death’, as does Stanley Kurbrick's movie ‘Eyes Wild Shut’. On the Beatles'
most famous album cover, ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Poe is one
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of the most recognizable faces, and can be seen at the very top of the collage.
That same year, 1967, the Beatles alluded to Poe in their song ‘I Am the
Walrus’, with the lyric “Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan
Poe.”
Iron Maiden and The Beatles under the infuence of Edgar Allan poe.
Glass Prism made it to the Billboard top 100 chart with their hit ‘The Raven’.
In 1976, British art-rock group Alan Parsons Project released an album entirely
based on Poe's works, called ‘Tales of Mystery and Imagination’, and in 1980
they released the instrumental ‘The Gold-Bug’. Tool quoted Poe's ‘Dream
Within a Dream’ in their 1992 song ‘Sweat’. In 2003, Lou Reed released a triple
album called ‘The Raven’, featuring many poems and miniatures, as well as
recitations of Poe's poems and stories. The album also featured celebrity
actor William Defoe among its many guests. Incredibly, even novice punk
legends Green Day did it; their song ‘St. Jimmy’ on the ‘American Idiot’ album
features the lyrics: “I'm the son of a bitch and Edgar Allan Poe, raised in the
city in the halo of lights.” Marilyn Manson, who painted Poe's portrait, has
stated that Poe was his inspiration for many works. Goth icon Ville Valo of the
band HIM has also been outspoken about his influence, as has Tuomas
Holopainen, leader and keyboardist of Finnish heavy metal giants Nightwish.
The band recorded and released the song ‘The Poet and the Pendulum’, based
in part on Poe's novella ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’. Countless other metal
bands have recorded songs or albums modelled after Poe's life and works.
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Grave Digger dedicated their self-titled album to Poe and included some
songs based on his works, Nevermore take their name from the ‘The Raven’,
and the discographies of Tristania, Green Carnation, Cradle of Filth, Crimson
Glory, Rage, Metal Church, Stormwitch. Simphony X and many more are
littered with songs inspired by Poe's works. Perhaps the most intriguing fact
is that pop heroine Britney Spears named her 2001-2002 tour ‘Dream Within
a Dream’ after Poe’s famous song, and her stage scenography and
choreographies included references to various pieces by Poe.
Legendary Vincent Price – huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe.
Between 1909 and 2019, more than 60 famous films have been made as
direct adaptations of Poe's works. They were filmed in America and France
(‘The Gold-Bug’) as early as 1910, Italy (‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ in 1910),
and several other countries. Interestingly, from 1909 to 1915 as many as
seven films were made of Poe's short stories. Many famous actors and
directors have had a desire to try their hand at films based on his writings.
Henry B. Walthall played Poe in the 1915 biopic ‘The Raven’. In the 1942 film
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‘The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe’, Poe is played by John Shepperd, later known
as Shepperd Strudwick. Joseph Cotten embodies Poe in 1951’s ‘The Man with
a Cloak’. In 1960's ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, Poe narrates the story, played by
Laurence Payne. In the 1964 horror film ‘Danza Macabra’, directed by Antonio
Margheriti, Silvano Tranquilli stars as Poe, and in 1967's ‘Torture Garden’,
directed by Freddie Francis, the role went to Hedger Wallace. In the 1971
horror film ‘Nella stretta morsa del ragno’, directed by Antonio Margheriti,
famous actor Klaus Kinski plays the part of Poe, while in 1974's ‘The Specter
of E. A. Poe’ the writer is played by Robert Walker Jr.
Tim Burton’s 1982 film ‘Vincent’ tells the story of two boys who are obsessed
with the lives of Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price. The vampire movie ‘Tale
of a Vampire’, directed in 1992 by Shimako Sato, gives the role of Poe to
Kenneth Cranham, while Virginia and her reincarnation into Anne are played
by Suzanne Hamilton. Sylvester Stallone, probably also guided by the idea of
the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth in 2008, made the film that addresses the
mysterious life of Poe. In the fantastic comedy ‘Lives and Deaths of the Poets’,
also released in 2009, Greg Coale plays Poe. Perhaps the most notable films
based on Poe's work were directed by Roger Corman and starred Vincent
Price: ‘House of Usher’ (1960), ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1961), ‘Tales of
Terror’ (1962), ‘The Raven’ (1963), ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1964) and
‘The Tomb of Ligeia’ (1965). In 2005, Lurker Films released a collection of
Edgar Allan Poe films on DVD, including short film adaptations of poems
‘Annabel Lee’, directed by George Higham, ‘The Raven’ directed by Peter
Bradley, and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ directed by Alfonso S. Suarez. Since 2004,
animated film producer Michael Sporn has been working on the movie ‘Poe’,
which depicts his life and works. In recent years, Edgar Allan Poe is
everywhere and it's almost impossible to keep track of all the movie and TV
releases, but you certainly can’t have misses the Netflix series ‘Altered
Carbon’, where Poe is one of the more important characters in the story.
In 1993, Tony Curtis's movie ‘The Mummy Lives’, based on a screenplay by

Nelson Gidding, was inspired by Poe's 1845 work ‘Some Words with a
Mummy’. His poem ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ is often alluded to in the 1975
film ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, directed by Peter Weir. In 1987’s ‘The Lost Boys’
teen-vampire hit, two teenage vampire hunters (played by Corey Feldman
and Jamison Newlander) are named Edgar and Alan Frog, inspired by Poe's
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name. In the cult movie ‘The Crow’, the late Brandon Lee quotes parts of Poe's
poem ‘The Raven’. In the 2004 remake of ‘The Ladykillers’, the cop in the
movie is a huge Poe fan and often quotes his poetry. In the 1971 movie ‘Gass-
s-s-s’, Poe is a motorcycle rider. The 2004 release of ‘Hellboy’ features an
adaptation of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ in the DVD extras.
Renowned Canadian animator Logan Wright adapted Poe's story ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’ as did British director and animator Mario Cavalli in 1998,
releasing it as a full-length feature film. A modern adaptation appears in Toby
Keith's video ‘A little Too Late’, produced by Show Dog National. Sketch
comedy group Dynamite Kablammo from North Hollywood also made a
somewhat eccentric version of the same story, but unfortunately, the
recording was permanently destroyed by a major fire at the studios in mid-
2008. In 1971, on an episode of Rod Sterling's TV series ‘Night Gallery’ called
‘The Merciful’ there’s a short segment where an old woman (Imogene Coca)
walls up her husband (King Donovan) who is sitting passively in an old
armchair in the basement. As she works, she tells him ”This is a much better
way. I'm doing this for your own good.” When the woman finishes the job,
the old man rises from his armchair and walks from the basement, upstairs
into the house. In a twist, it turns out that the woman has mistakenly walled
herself up, and not him.
Poe has been featured in many comics, and the allusions to his works are
endless. Here are just a few examples: ‘In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe’
(2002) by Jonathon Scott Fuqua, whose story follows a professor who has
discovered Poe's latest diary, written in delirium on his deathbed. The diary
reveals his artistic inspiration came from selling his soul to demons. Part of
the deal is that Poe can only write while in Baltimore. ‘The Surreal Adventures
of Edgar Allan Poe’ is a web comic by Dwight MacPherson, originally released
for Drunk Duck. Phantom Comic's ‘The Baltimore Mystery’ gives a detailed –
albeit fictional – explanation of Poe’s mysterious death and his final days. In
the 2003 Batman ‘Nevermore’ mini-series by DC Comics, writer Len Wein and
illustrator Guy Davis teamed up with Batman and Poe to solve multiple
murder cases. A similarly well-known mash-up took place in 2004 in Europe,
in several episodes of the Bonellia comic ‘Zagor’, where the title character
teams up with ‘Agent Raven’ (Poe) to solve intricate nightmares composed of
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allusions to many of his works, in order to defeat Zagor's arch-nemesis

Professor Hellingen.
Famous TV shows have aired episodes based on Poe, and give them frequent
reruns. The famous animated series ‘The Simpsons’ contains several
references to Poe’s work. The original ‘Treehouse of Horror’ episode features
a section where James Earl Jones reads the verses of ‘The Raven’ with Homer,
who plays the narrator, while Marge is Lenore and Bart is the Raven. Poe is
even credited here as co-author alongside Sam Simon. In the episode ‘Lisa's
Rival’, Lisa Simpson competes with a girl who recites parts of the story ‘The
Tell-tale Heart’. The episode ‘Saturday of Thunder’ features Poe's tombstone
being cleaned by Dr. Nick Riviera. The episode ‘Lisa, the Simpson’ contains
many references to ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, while the episode ‘Homer
Triple Bypass' features Edgar Allan Poe's hometown.
Edgar Allan Poe as 'guest star' im The Simpsons.
In the famous series CSI, the episode ‘Up in Smoke’ features a case that’s a
combination of two of Poe's stories: 'The Tell-tale Heart’ and ‘The Cask of
Amontillado’. In the episode ‘Poe Pourri’ of the cartoon ‘Beetlejuice’, Poe's
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ghost seeks out his lost love, Lenore. There are allusions throughout to several
other stories by Poe, for example Beetlejuice becomes a golden insect and
finds a beating heart beneath the floorboards of his house. A special episode
of ‘Futurama’ called ‘Bender’s Game’, alludes to ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’,
as does the third season episode of Gilmore Girls ‘A Tale of Poes and Fire’
which aired on April 15, 2003. The series ‘Sabrina, the Teenage Witch’ 1999
episode ‘The Phantom Menace’ also features Poe as a central character.
Poe and Beetlejuice.
Poe is also frequently mentioned in some series that many Maiden fans have
not had the opportunity to watch on their national television; ‘Dickens of
London’ from 1976, ‘Edgar & Ellen’, or ‘Time Squad’ and its 2001 episode ‘Every
Poe Has a Silver Lining’. He is also mentioned in the ‘Homicide: Life on the
Streets’ episode that was filmed in Baltimore, in the ‘Histeria!’ episode ‘Super
Writers’, in the first season of ‘Boy Meets World’, an episode of 'The Fugitive’,
in the third season of ‘Masters Of Horror’ – the episode 'The Black Cat', in ‘The
Venture Bros.’ and ‘Monarch’ series, as well as in the ‘Beetleborgs Metallix’
episode ‘Poe and the Pendulum’. In the short-lived TV series ‘Stark Raving Mad’,
Tony Shalhoub plays Ian Stark, a horror writer who has a dog named Edgar.
Actor John Astin, who played Gomez on ‘The Addams Family’ television series,
had earlier played Poe in a one-man play based on Poe's work called ‘Edgar
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Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight’. Baltimore actor David Keltz is known to
impersonate Poe at birthday celebrations in his honor, which take place every
January at Westminster Hall and close to his grave. In the mid-1990s, ‘The
Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival’ performed ‘Edgar – The Life of Edgar Allan
Poe’, written by Jack Yuken. The work was performed at five theatres in South
Florida. Kevin Crawford played Poe, R.A. Smith and Heidi Harris had
supporting roles and Kermin Christman directed. ‘Poe: the Musical’
premiered in 2005, from a book by David Kogeas with music and lyrics
composed by Davit Lenchus, and Deven May playing the title role. In early
2007, composer Phill Greenland and writer and actor Ethan Angelica also
announced that they were working on a lavish musical called ‘Edgar’, his
prose, poems and letters acting as the script.
Early inspiration in Poe’s work was found by writers like Baudelaire, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, and even great Croatian writers like Matoš and Kamov. His
influence has continued throughout the 20th and even 21st centuries. Walter
de la Mare wrote the short story ‘The Revenant’ in 1936, where Poe gets a
glimpse of the modern interpretation of his life and work. In 1940, Manly
Wade Wellman published the story ‘When It Was Moonlight’ inserting Poe
into a vampire theme in an interesting plot. John Dickson Carr wrote ‘The
Gentleman from Paris’ in 1950, where Poe is cast in the role of the famous
investigator he created, Dupin. In 1969, Fritz Leiber published the short story
‘Richmond, Late September 1849’ in which Poe meets Charles Baudelaire's
sister. Barry Perowne tried something similar in his 1974 story ‘A Singular
Conspiracy’ – Poe visits Paris in 1844 and meets a young Charles Baudelaire.
1978 saw publication of the novel ‘The Last Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe: the
Troy Dossier’ – here, Poe is employed by the New York Police to solve several
murders in 1846. In 1989, Avi published the story ‘The Man Who Was Poe’ in
which a young man named Edmund befriends C. Auguste Dupin, who is
actually Poe. Together they solve mysteries on Rhode Island. In the 1990 story
‘Hollow Earth’, Rudy Ruckner casts Poe as the discoverer of the undiscovered
centre of the world. In 1990, Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen made Poe
the protagonist of their sci-fi tale ‘The Black Throne’, quoting many of his
words. One scene is identical to the story ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’. In 1993,
Kim Newman, writing under the pseudonym Jack Yeovil, published a satirical
cyberpunk story ‘Route 666’ starring ‘Eddy Poe’. In 1997, Egon Hatvary
published ‘The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe’ in which detective C. Auguste
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Dupin from Poe’s popular stories investigates the writer’s mysterious death.
The same premise was used two years earlier by Stephen Marlowe, and by
Matthew Pearl whose book ‘Poe Shadow’ has made him widely celebrated –
and a wealthy man – since its 2006 release when it became an absolute
worldwide hit and bestseller. In the 2002 story ‘The Last Narrative of Edgar
Allan Poe’, Frank Lovelock uses the same subject matter as the three authors
previously mentioned. This goes to show just how many questions were left
unanswered in Poe's mysterious death, making it as fascinating a subject as
his works. Harold Schechter makes many allusions to Poe's work in his 1999
stories, and in 2001's ‘The Hum Bug’, 2004's ‘The Mask of Red Death’ and 2006's
‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. In his story ‘Nevermore’ the main character is the famous
Davey Crockett, borrowing from Poe’s always interesting style. ‘The American
Boy’ from 2003 is a story based on the historical mystery of Poe's education in
England. ‘Edgar Allan Poe's San Francisco: Terror Tales of the City’ from 2005 is
a story by Joseph Covino Jr. and brings us stories written in a typically Poe-like
way. In 2006, Luis Bayard published the story ‘The Pale Blue Eyes’ in which Poe
investigates mysterious deaths as a young West Point cadet. Joel Rose's 2007
story ‘Blackest Bird’ also offers us a biographical Poe as the protagonist. The
‘Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events’ book series features the Poe
as the nanny of the Baudelaire children. Poe’s ghost often appears in Robert
Rankin's ‘The Brentford Trilogy’ and several of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
books humorously feature a talking raven named Quoth who categorically
states “I don’t do the N-word”. Finally, a young Poe is the main protagonist of
the 2007 book ‘Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further Adventures of Gullivar
Jones’, written by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier.
Famous bestselling authors Stephen King and Dean Koontz have both quoted
Poe's verses and stories in many of their works. It should also be noted that
the poem by the great Croatian poet A.G. Matoš ‘The Consolation of the Hair’
pays homage in a way to Poe's famous works ‘Lenore’ and ‘A Paean’. Worth
knowing is the fact that Jules Verne, intrigued by Poe's only novel, the
abruptly open-ended ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’,
decided to continue writing where Poe left off, taking the heroes of the story
and writing a new book titled ‘An Antarctic Mystery’. This is not widely known,
but anyone reading this interesting book will find out what’s behind the
‘Tekeli-li’ roar of the great white birds, and the phantom white creature that
appeared when the ship from the original tale entered the South Pole.
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Croatian artists have shown that Poe influenced them too. Apart from the
aforementioned poets Matoš and Kamov, we were recently treated to a
recital of ‘Annabel Lee’ performed by well-known actor Rade Šerbedžija,
while Zadar band Rising Dream (today known Arises – they supported Iron
Maiden in Split in 2008) demo ‘Spheres’ is named after Poe's song from
‘Ligeia’, ‘The Conqueror Worm’. A song of the same name was released on
their album ‘Failed Apocalypse’. An excerpt of the lyrics could be heard by all
visitors to Poljud who had heard of them before Iron Maiden, in their concert
intro to the ‘Failed Tour 2008/2009’. The verses are as follows:
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Lo! 'tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres
Here’s a list of the more famous films made from Poe's works: ‘Edgar Allan Poe’
(1909), ‘The Golden Bug’ (1910), ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1910), ‘The Bells’
(1912), ‘The Avenging Conscience’ (1914), ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’
(1914), ‘The Raven’ (1915), ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ (1928), ‘The Fall of the House
of Usher’ (1928), ‘La Chute de la maison Usher’ (1928), ‘Murders in the Rue
Morgue’ (1932), ‘The Black Cat’ (1934), ‘Maniac’ (1934) – adaptations of the
stories ‘The Black Cat', ‘The Raven’ (1935), ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ (1941), ‘The
Loves of Edgar Allan Poe’ (1942), ‘Mystery of Marie Roget’ (1942), ‘The Tell-Tale
Heart’ (1953), ‘The Phantom of the Rue Morgue’ (1953), ‘House of Usher’
(1960), ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ (1960), ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1961), ‘The
Premature Burial’ (1962), ‘Tales of Terror’ (1962) – adaptations of the stories
‘Morella’, ‘The Black Cat’ and ‘The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar’, ‘The Raven’
(1963), ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ (1964), ‘Danza macabra’ (1964), ‘The
Tomb of Ligeia’ (1965), ‘Spirits of the Dead’ (3 segments: ‘Metzengerstein’ –
Roger Vadim, William Wilson – Louis Malle and Toby Dammit – Federico Fellini
(1968), ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1971), ‘The Specter of Edgar Allan
Poe’ (1974), ‘Vincent’ (1982), ‘The Raven... Nevermore’ (1999), ‘The Raven’ –
short film (2003), ‘The Death of Poe’ (2006), ‘Nightmares from the Mind of Poe’
(2006), ‘Poe’ (2008), ‘The Lighthouse’ (2008), ‘Eureka: The Mind Of Edgar Allan
Poe’ (2008), ‘Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia’ (2008), plus a full series of films from the
last 10 years that are just waiting to pass the test of time.
This chapter was originally an article published in the Croatian daily

newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija on 19.01. 2009, the 200th anniversary of E. A.
Poe's birth, and subsequently modified and upgraded to compensate for the
11 years elapsed until the publication of this book.
Stjepan Juras
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E. A. POE AND IRON MAIDEN

A cursory glance at Maiden's entire discography would lead many to conclude
that the only link between them and Edgar Allan Poe is the song ‘Murders in the
Rue Morgue’ from the album ‘Killers’. However, looking closer, Poe's shadow
has hung over them since the band’s very beginnings, and has remained there
throughout their careers. In the early days, Maiden wrote songs whose plots
were connected or complemented each other, and it was almost an unwritten
rule; the second song in any such set has always been more commercially
successful. We need only remember ‘Invasion’ from the demo days, which was
upgraded on the third album and renamed ‘Invaders’, or ‘Floating’ which later
grew into ‘Purgatory’. The famous ‘Charlotte the Harlot’ became ‘22 Acacia
Avenue’, while the same could be said of ‘Sanctuary’, which in addition to
becoming one of the band's favourites, inspired Maiden’s management to
name their company after the song – and received a sort of spiritual sequel in
the song ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’. Apart from the having the same title,
the song and Edgar Allan Poe’s story share a location – Paris – and little else
except in certain segments which I will discuss in more detail in the analysis of
this song – see the next chapter. However, the plot mirrors that of ‘Sanctuary’,
which similarly addresses the theme of a probable witness to a crime, who was
seen and accidentally mistaken for the perpetrator by someone else. The
protagonist is now a fugitive from the law and in search of refuge.
This song was originally released on the ‘Metal for Muthas’ compilation, then
as a single which came out a month after the release of the first album. It was
later found only on the original US release of the first album, because Iron
Maiden didn’t have a single for the first album in the US, so including
‘Sanctuary’ on the album was a wise move. In the UK and the rest of Europe,
the song wasn’t included on the first album until its 1998 re-release. In
addition to ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, a similar theme can also be seen in
‘Innocent Exile’ from ‘Killers’ and ‘The Fugitive’ from ‘Fear of the Dark’, which
was inspired by the TV series of the same name, although it is best known
worldwide from the 1993 Oscar-winning film. It would appear that Steve
Harris was clearly very fond of topics like this, and Poe's stories were certainly
inspiring to him.
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The opening verses of the song ‘Sanctuary’ have an unusual structure where
almost every stanza is also the chorus, followed by another chorus, in fact
telling us the whole essence of the song.
Out of winter came a warhorse of steel

I've never killed a woman before
but I know how it feels
I know you'd have gone insane
If you saw what I saw
But now I've got to look for
Sanctuary from the law
Taken in the context of the lyrics of ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, released
on ‘Killers’ a year later, these lyrics perfectly complement each other:
I remember it as plain as day

Although it happened in the dark of the night.
I was strolling through the streets of Paris
And it was cold it was starting to rain
Even comparing the little things, they work: like the fact that the first song is set
in the winter and the second mentions a cold, rainy night in Paris. The protagonist
hears loud cries and runs to the place they came from, only to find the bodies of
two butchered women. He calls for help and some people run to him, but they all
point the finger at him, thinking he was the killer because of the blood on his
hands, stained as he tried to save the victims. As a stranger and unable to explain
what had happened, he flies, choosing southern Italy as the place he might would
best hide (hence the allusion to the Mafia) – this is the backbone of the later story.
The following verse best relates the stories of both songs.
Well I made it to the border at last

But I can't erase the scene from my mind
Anytime somebody stares at me, well
I just start running blind
At this point, we must move on to another story, Poe’s excellent, even

masterful ‘Imp of Perverse’. In its lengthy introduction, he describes a kind of
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perverse need of a man who has committed a crime, the most perfect crime
that could never be solved, a strange urge that means he will eventually
expose himself, perhaps even just to boast of the perfection with which he
concealed all trace of the murder. Read the last verses from the previous page
again, then read the final part of that story, in which the killer walks among
people with a panicked feeling that everyone is staring at him, knowing what
he did, even though the crime is perfectly concealed and see how similar they
are, in lyrics and the whole atmosphere.
One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in the act of
murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a fit of petulance, I
remodelled them thus; “I am safe -- I am safe -- yes -- if I be not fool enough
to make open confession!”
No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart.
I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, (whose nature I have
been at some trouble to explain), and I remembered well that in no instance
I had successfully resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-
suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of
which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I
had murdered -- and beckoned me on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I walked
vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I felt a maddening desire to
shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new
terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that to think, in my situation, was
to be lost. I still quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the
crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued
me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my tongue,
I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears -- a rougher
grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped for breath. For a moment
I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy;
and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon
the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.
They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis
and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the
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brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the hangman and to hell.
Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I fell
prostrate in a swoon. But why shall I say more? Today I wear these chains,
and am here! Tomorrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?
Reading the original ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, it is very easy to see
that there is no mention of someone discovered at a crime scene, who now
has to save his (innocent) self and go on the run – the killer is an orangutan.
Harris took the crime scene and the murder of two young women by an
unknown person from the original story. The rest is entirely his own fiction
and a sequel to the story, where he very likely mixed aspects of both ‘Imp of
Perverse’ and ‘Man of the Crowd’ into this song, thereby creating his own
hybrid. On the same album is the song ‘Innocent Exile’ which we can consider
as a kind of further extension of this theme like with ‘Sanctuary’. Consider the
verse:
I'm running away, nowhere to go

I'm lost and tired and I just don't know. Yeah...
They say I killed a woman, they know it isn't true
They're just trying to frame me, and all because of you. Yeah...
While I’ll describe the entire writing process of the lyrics of ‘Murders in the
Rue Morgue’ in the chapter that follows, for now I would like to draw your
attention to a song that is rarely mentioned and which has remained a
mystery among Maiden fans to this day. It is the only completely light and
dreamy Maiden song, in that its lyrics can be said to be more like the poetic
verses than lyrics for a composed song. It's called ‘Strange World’ and was
released on the band's first album. From the very structure of the lyrics, the
rhythm of the poem, the perfect rhyme and the balanced metric, anyone who
knows Poe's works will recognise them. Mostly his later works, such as the
prose poem ‘Eureka’ or his interesting work ‘The Island of Fay’. If you read
poems like ‘Dream-Land’, ‘Fairy-Land’, ‘The One in Paradise’ and similar, you
will definitely notice the exact same themes, scenes, descriptions and
atmosphere. Given that the whole of ‘Strange World’ has some dreamy-
utopian vibe with a futuristic sound suited to space travel, let's make note of
this fact from Wikipedia:
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He wasn’t just a writer. Poe quite enjoyed space and cosmology, even writing
an essay in 1848. called 'Eureka: A Prose Poem.' In the essay, he proposed a
theory that was way before its time: The Big Bang, something that would be
formally theorized some 80 years later. When he published this work, he
considered it to be his career’s masterpiece.
In principle, although written in its entirety by Steve Harris except for one
lyrics collaboration with singer Paul Di'Anno, ‘Killers’ cannot be said to be a
concept album. That said, it does follow a theme in which killers, murder,
suicide, even murderous anger, viewed from the perspective of the victim,
the killer, or the collateral victim, are present throughout the album. Many of
the songs from ‘Killers’ existed long before the first album was recorded,
when Harris was barely of age, and they were simply remnants of many a
performance when they were finally pressed into an album. This fact alone
separates them from any possibility that there was conceptual deliberation in
the making of the album, but since it was mostly written by one person, it is
of course possible that this person – Harris – was playing the same movie in
his head which made the album's theme was somewhat uniform. But what
does this have to do with Poe's influence on Harris, and which of his works
can we recognise on this album? The following is from the website
‘maidencommentary’, an excellent fan page about ‘Killers’:
It is an interesting and complex thread, which explores the ‘Killers’ concept

from several different perspectives including the angry searcher, the fleeing
suspect, the innocently accused, the cold-blooded killer, the repentant
disciple, and finally the reformed drifter. In this sense, with a bit of
imagination the album can be viewed as a progression beginning with anger
and violence and ending with repentance and reformation.
Many fans naturally associate the song ‘The Ides of March’ with March 15,
the date on which Brutus murders Caesar in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’.
This murder for gain with hidden motives can also correlate with the song
‘Wratchald’ with ‘The Ides of March’ acting as an instrumental intro of sorts,
as well as for the fact that Brutus himself might fit the characterization of a
‘Wratchild’.
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In his writing, Poe often describes murderers, murderous thoughts, crimes and
criminal minds, frequently using detailed descriptions in the first-person so that
readers could experience a level of self-insertion and almost directly witness
the unspeakable horrors going on in the minds of either criminal or victim.
Somehow, it turns out that most people today encounter Poe in high school as
part of their compulsory reading assignments. Some are hooked immediately,
others aren’t. ‘Killers’, which Harris wrote in his early twenties, shows Poe's
influence in many places, though it may not necessarily be the case that a
Maiden song is directly connected to his work, like the instrumental ‘Genghis
Khan’. As a military genius, Genghis Khan certainly deserves to be included in
Iron Maiden’s discography, given that many of their works focus on the subject
of wars and warriors, but whatever death Genghis Khan left in his wake that can
be linked to the overarching theme of the album, many forget that it was Edgar
Allan Poe who wrote the famous poem ‘Tamerlane’, about Genghis Khan’s cruel
heir and mentions Genghis himself. And famous poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
whose cult poem Iron Maiden recorded as one of their most iconic songs ‘Rime
of the Ancient Mariner’, wrote the poem ‘Kubla Khan’ about the famous
Mongol emperor, grandson of Genghis Khan. ‘Everything is connected’ is a
famous catchphrase in the Netflix series ‘Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective
Agency’, and in this case we can certainly agree.
The idea for a character named ‘Lamia’ in Iron Maiden’s song ‘Prodigal Son’
may have come from the eponymous poem by English poet John Keats, a
poem that greatly influenced Poe to write his famous sonnet ‘To Science’. In
Greek mythology, Lamia was a monster from Hades’ underworld, half-woman
and half-snake, going to the earth’s surface at night and stealing children from
their mothers, killing them and drinking their blood. In modern
interpretations, she is in possession of magical objects or knows information
necessary to the hero of the story on their journey. The hero must avoid her,
deceive her, or gain her affections in order to obtain what he/she needs. This
might serve as the plot for ‘Prodigal Son’, as the protagonist begs Lamia for
help throughout the song, finally saying the following:
Oh Lamia please try to help me

The devil's got a hold of my soul and he won't let me be
Lamia I've got this curse, I'm turning to bad
The devil's got a hold of my soul, and it's driving me mad. Oh
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It is through these lyrics that the protagonist, a fugitive and potentially a

murderer gets a grip on himself, confronts his crime, and ‘backed into a
corner’ admits that he did it all, begging for help, but within Lamia’s
paranormal, magical limits. Moreover, this untangling of the threads of ‘the
innocent fugitive’ story is subtly inserted into the closing verses of both
‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’. Let’s look at both:
I can laugh at the wind

I can howl at the rain
Down in the canyon or out on the plains
***
It took so long and I'm getting so tired
I'm running out of places to hide
Should I return to the scene of the crime
Where the two young victims died
If I could go to somebody for help
It'd get me out of trouble for sure
But I know that it's on my mind
That my doctor said I've done it before.
If we comb through more Maiden history, the song ‘Still Life’ from the album
‘Piece of Mind’ is a summary of everything Poe talks about in the story ‘Imp
of Perverse’: the urge to self-destruct can be clearly read there. The cover of
the album ‘Live after Death’ was probably subconsciously inspired by old
illustrations of Poe's literary hit ‘The Premature Burial’, as was the cover of
the album ‘No Prayer for the Dying’, which incidentally depicts the exact
scene from that story. Harris began exploring the topic of Purgatory at the
very beginning of his musical career, first with ‘Floating’, which he later
supplemented with ‘Purgatory’ and continued to do so in the song ‘Heaven Can
Wait’ from the album ‘Somewhere in Time’. Poe, as we know, wrote many
poems and stories about the afterlife, like ‘Ligeia’, ‘Mesmeric Revelations’, etc.
and about purgatory, which is the theme of his longest poem, ‘Al Aaraaf’.
Looking at Blaze Bayley’s tenure with the band, special attention should be
paid to the song ‘When Two Worlds Collide’, whose theme was first covered
in Poe's excellent 1839 story ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’ and
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which is clearly visible in Maiden’s updated version. Interestingly, two disaster

movies were released in the same year as ‘Virtual XI’, the album that features
this song. ‘Deep Impact’ and ‘Armageddon’ are just another coincidence given
that ‘Virtual XI came out several months before either – unless Steve Harris
knew they were being made and deliberately recorded a song with a similar
theme to offer it to the producers, in the hope that listing them on a movie
soundtrack during a period of declining popularity for the band would reverse
their fortunes. However, this did not happen. On this album, we can also single
out the song ‘Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger’, which fits both in theme and
in feel and feels like an extension of the song ‘Killers’. In the post-2000 era, fans
were attracted by the unfinished cover of the album ‘Dance of Death’, which
reflected the songs on the album, Maiden deliberately released a raw,
unfinished recording, enraging the illustrators so much that they refused to be
credited for the cover design. Many interpret this in two ways: some advocate
for the idea that the band’s inspiration came from legendary filmmaker Stanley
Kubrick’s film ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, but a large number of fans insist it actually
draws on Poe's famous 'Masque of the Red Death’, as the scene in the picture
irresistibly resembles the final scene of one of Poe's most celebrated tales.
Finally, on the album ‘The Final Frontier’, the first single was the song ‘El
Dorado’, which might be used too often as a title, a synonym or a name (when
speaking of the legend), but in this case, a poem of the same name was written
by Edgar Allan Poe and its theme, or final thought or message, is similar, even
identical to Maiden's, only told in another way and in other words.
At the very end of this review of Poe’s possible impact on Iron Maiden, it is very
important to mention the following: today, many fan sites and many authors tend
to study Maiden lyrics very thoroughly, meticulously, and speculatively, especially
those on the first albums that are short, obscure, sketchy, and it’s difficult to
understand exactly what is being said. However, they tend to forget the fact that
for the most part the songs on ‘Killers’ were produced in the mid-1970s, when the
authors were barely twenty years old, and that a good number of them weren’t
very well educated. Some were high school dropouts, others finished school just
get it over with, immediately devoting themselves to music, so they didn’t have
time to study or read, and they knew about most of what they wrote about from
screen adaptations of literary works, not from reading books. In reality, these
early texts are, simple, shallow, and not as overwhelming in their importance as
has been implied based on Iron Maiden’s later works.
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THE STORY BEHIND THE 'RUE

MORGUE' SONG
“This was a bit of an experiment”, said Steve Harris in an attempt to explain
the structure and idea for the inception of ’Murders in the Rue Morgue’. “I'd
never played harmonics on the bass much before that. But with the mood of
the intro, it felt really natural to play those harmonics. We wanted to create
mood and then come and hit people across the head with it. The vocal melody
is pretty much the same as the riff. That's the give them both more power.”
Not only did the experiment succeed, it has become almost a Maiden trademark
throughout their career, whether it be playing harmonies and even melodies on
the bass guitar, or in a slow and solemn intro that prepares and soothes us,
focuses us and hints at the drama, and then starts a breakneck pace that lasts
until the end of the song. Ideal for so-called concert openers, and there have been
many of those in Iron Maiden’s career. Remember their megahit ‘Aces High’, or
the song ‘Caught Somewhere in Time’, then ‘Moonchild’… ‘Murders in the Rue
Morgue’ was the show opener twice – for the ‘The Beast on the Road’ tour in
1982 and for the 2005 ‘Eddie Rips Up’ tour. We would use up several pages in
attempting to list all of Steve’s uses of bass guitar harmonies.
Basically, a new sound formula was born. Maiden had not only found their new
but already legendary producer Martin Birch, but also the distinctive sound which
is instantly recognizable to this day. As songwriter Steve Harris noted, the song's
vocal melody was created to blend in with the riff, especially in the choruses and
the bridge – the song became more powerful and quickly became a fan favourite.
In this song, too, Maiden may have pioneered a popular vocal technique for which
music fans give most credit to Guns'N'Roses and which is clearly noticed in many
of their songs like the chorus of ‘You Could Be Mine’ and ‘Paradise City’.
Specifically, Paul Di’Anno adds a non-existent syllable to the lyrics ‘rain’, ‘crime’,
‘call’, ‘mind’, ‘night’, for the sake of effect and to extend the sound of the final word
of each line. Thus rain becomes ‘raiain’, crime becomes ‘criaime’, call is ‘coiall’, mind
becomes ‘miaind’, and night becomes ‘niaight’. Iron Maiden went on to use this
technique in a few more songs, but it is most striking and clearly heard in this one.
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This song is one of a handful of songs that weren’t performed at Maiden's

earlier gigs and can be considered to be a song created exclusively for the
album ‘Killers’. Although the title, setting and framing of the story gives the
impression that it is Edgar Allan Poe's famous tale set to music, the story
develops in a completely different direction and leaved out the murderous
orangutan as well as the brilliant mind of Detective C. August Dupin.
Throughout Maiden’s career, Steve Harris has developed a specific, first-
person storyteller style of writing which echoes, after all, how Edgar Allan Poe
wrote many of his works. This writing style kept people wide-eyed (or –eared,
in this case) from beginning to end, because the tension and anticipation of
what is about to happen were almost palpable from their sheer volume. As
the song starts, we follow the protagonist, who has vivid memories of
everything despite the dark, wandering through the cold and rainy streets of
night-time Paris and hearing a terrible scream. He then comes across a crime
scene and finds nothing but two massacred female bodies. Afterwards, men
gather who have heard his calls for help (it’s not clear before this if he also
tried to help the women), but they start pointing at him, implying he is the
killer. He doesn’t understand why all of this is happening because, as he says,
he has done nothing, but when he realizes that he probably has blood on his
hands as everyone shouts that he is the killer. As he does not speak French
and cannot clarify what has taken place, the only sensible act he could think
of in the moment was a headless escape, which he does. As he runs heedlessly
through the dark streets of Paris, he wonders in his mind if he will ever be
free again. After searching all of France the following day, the protagonist
decides to secretly escape to southern Italy, believing himself safer there,
probably an allusion to the mafia and, a much easier way of suppressing clues.
In that moment, the protagonist, knowing that the police may discover his
identity, decides that he will never return home. It isn’t specified whether this
home is in the UK or elsewhere. When he is able to cross the border, the
protagonist doesn’t feel any better, because the memory of the crime scene
is constantly swirling around in his mind, and he quickly develops paranoid
behaviour – whenever someone looks at him for whatever reason, he believes
the person recognizes him, and runs away again to cover up. Driven mad, the
protagonist of the story eventually begins moving only under cover of the
shadows of the night, when there are no people around and no curious
glances, knowing that during the day, when they can see him, he shows signs
92
of being the suspect. Constantly running takes its toll, the protagonist starts
getting weary of hiding and begins to contemplate a return to the crime scene
where the two young women were murdered (in the original Poe story, one
victim is younger and the other is older), possibly to seek help and to try
explaining what happened. However, at the end of the song, there is a twist
– in the closing lines, the protagonist says ‘but I know that it's on my mind
that my doctor said I've done it before’, which leaves us with reasonable
doubt that the protagonist of the story was the murderer this whole time. If
we rewind the film a little, we will remember that it’s the protagonist telling
us the story, and he is our only source of information about what takes place.
Is the story indeed true, or a subconscious, semi-conscious or schizophrenic
state of mind (his behaviour is very similar to that of a schizophrenic), this will
not be revealed, it is merely suggested and up for discussion.
‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ is a song that, despite the dramatic changes
between the story's flow and the original work by Poe, sustains the tension,
suspense and makes the listener wonder what will happen until the very end.
With its ending, it even leaves open the possibility that the story might continue.
With its structure and rhythmic gallop that’s somehow squeezed itself in between
punk and heavy metal and reminds is of schizophrenic, headless running, this
song might even be compared in certain segments to ‘Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner’, which also rhythmically follows the protagonist of the story, the
runner, although in this song the runner runs from pride and defiance, while in
Rue Morgue he runs to escape and to hide, fearing for his life.
In 1985, this song was released as a live version on the B side of the 12” single
‘Running Free’, which also features the song ‘Sanctuary’. Adding two and two
together, one can understand exactly why these three songs were part of the
same vinyl set, especially ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ on the
same side. It is equally significant that Iron Maiden donated part of the
proceeds of this single to anti-drug and anti-heroin abuse charities. The song,
of course, prompted fans to explore the fantastic literary world of Edgar Allan
Poe and discover the full range of his work, which in turn forever changed
their understanding of the world in which they live. If, however, you decide
to look for the Rue Morgue in Paris, it doesn't really exist, nor has it ever
existed. Poe clarified that he decided on the name simply to amplify the initial
sombre mood when you read his timeless work..
93
EDDIE AND POE

Did you know that Edgar Allan Poe was sometimes called Eddie, especially by
his loves: his wife, Virginia, and Maria Clemm, his stepmother? Of course, this
is by no means the only connection between Edgar Allan Poe and the most
famous of all the monsters, Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie, alias Edward T. Head.
As a pioneer of the horror genre, Edgar Allan Poe showed something that no one
in literature had seen before, which is that readers not only love to be scared,
frightened and trapped in strange and dark worlds, his horror stories the lure to
the enormous potential of the genre. He showed that despite his producing other
fiction, writing detective novels and trying his hand at many other genres, horror
was what the public sought: blood, fear, death, dilapidated castles, dark dungeons
and cellars, sanatoriums, abandoned cemeteries and unexplored lands full of
monsters. Even when traveling to the distant ends of the universe or threatening
comets rushed toward us, readers sought more than mere dangers: fear and
terror and unspeakable horror. And, of course – they got it, in large quantities.
However, Poe did not influence just his readers. His works have inspired
numerous artists: writers, poets, actors, directors, musicians, dancers,
sculptors, photographers, choreographers and painters. Poe's imagination
continues to spread through the imagination and interpretation of others,
and after his death, Poe himself became a sort of horror icon in popular
culture, both in stature and appearance.
Suddenly, we saw Poe as an embodiment of his characters and the heroes of his
stories. It was Poe who spoke to a raven, Poe catching an orangutan in his guise
as detective C. Auguste Dupin, Poe sailing to the South Pole in the body of Arthur
Gordon Pym, rising from his grave, buried too early, tortured by the Inquisition,
donning a red death-mask to disguise himself, ruling the Earth entire on Gustav
Dore’s famous illustration, even holding a bloody, pulsating heart in his hands for
the illustration of his famous story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. Does this sound familiar
to you, have you seen this somewhere else? Of course you have, exactly where
you expect. Edward ‘Eddie’ the Head and Edgar ‘Eddie’ Allan Poe make their visual
marks on the horror world we know in almost identical ways.
94
95
Today, these two are the undisputed representatives of all that horror is and
what it represents to people. Try as you might, you won't find any other
classic hero of horror in as many different situations, so many time periods,
so many dimensions and in so many different places. Not Count Dracula, nor
Frankenstein, nor the murderous clown, nor Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers,
Jason Vorhees, Leatherface, Pinhead, Chucky, etc. Eddie A. Poe and Eddie T.
Head gave a new dimension to horror, somewhere in the process becoming
frightening villains with good publicity, horror superheroes of sorts. In the
early days, Eddie scoffed at everyone and intimidated them with his presence,
but it was when he turned his attentions on the likes of Margaret Thatcher,
Robert Maxwell, Bill Gates and the devil himself, Eddie gained much public
sympathy and became a horror symbol. It went so far that he was voted ‘sexiest
person of the year’ by Metal Hammer one year, leaving classic beauties of metal
like Sebastian Bach, Michael Monroe, Axl Rose and others in the dust.
In a similar manner, Poe went from poet and writer who was considered strange,
scary, possessing a sickly, drunken face, to a modern-day horror icon, a sex
symbol whose likeness can be found everywhere: on t-shirts, mugs, posters,
album covers, as well as in various videos, TV series and movies. Both Edgar Allan
Poe and – causally, consequently – Eddie redefined the genre and turned the
villains into good guys, knowing that these changes would completely upset the
perception of good and evil, the attractive and the terrifying. Eddie eventually
became a superhero, a storybook teacher who educates children in ‘Iron Maiden
for Maiden Kids’, while Edgar Allan Poe is now a comic book hero, the
embodiment of misunderstood genius with a brilliant mind, a fighter for justice
who solves even the most complicated cases and puzzles with power of his mind.
Eddie A. Poe and Eddie T. Head are ultimately very similar, so similar in fact
they really will have to meet some time, in a future Iron Maiden song.
‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ has given us both the foundation and the motive
for this. I believe that many Maiden fans have at some point become fans of
Poe, and vice versa. Eddie infiltrated all social spheres so well that he gained
a life of his own, separate from the Iron Maiden environment – the next step
in his evolution could be an attempt at literature. Both the ultimate evil and
a fighter for justice, Eddie will find his place in a book (his own novel!) on this
site, and as the author, I can only promise you that I will strive to do justice to
the vision and ideas of the great, the greatest of the great, Edgar Allan Poe.
96
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book wouldn’t have seen the light of day, hadn’t it been for the immense
and complete support from the members of both the Croatian Iron Maiden
fan club and the Iron Maiden online club. I have created this book thanks in
part to their advice, questions, suggestions and guidelines and I hope the final
product will please them all.
I would like to thank every person whom I’ve interviewed, including those
who decided not to extend me that courtesy. Thanks to my parents and my
brother for their patience, Ana Marija Abramović for translating this book into
English. Thanks to many Iron Maiden fans for all thoughts and advices. I also
owe my gratitude to Violeta Juras for her unbeliveable creative contribution
in book design, layout job and packing. She is also my good spirit behind all
orders and shipping activities. Thank you (last, but not least) to ITG stuff for
for their very important help.
Finally, a big thank you to every member of Iron Maiden, past and present,
and every person who ever worked for the band. Keep doing the greatest job
in the world. We, the fans, will always support you!
97
PHOTO AND LYRICS CREDITS
All the photographs in this book are black and white, small formats and low
resolution images. They serve only as supporting visuals to the text of this
document. They represent mainly screenshots, posters, album covers or old
uncopyrighted pictures and illustrations. I have cited what sources I was able
to and have credited the authors as a mark of respect. Fragments of Iron
Maiden Lyrics - courtesy of Zomba Music Publishig Ltd.
Page 30: 'Murder in the Rue Morgue' illustation by Luka Valković
98
IRON MAIDEN AND CLASSIC LITERATURE
From 'Phantom of the Opera' to 'Brave New World', Iron Maiden and classic
literature have always been an integral part of the secret formula that's fueled
the imaginations of millions of people, taking two masterpieces - the musical
and the literary - to form ultimate creations as though from the hand of some
'higher power'. 'Dune', 'Hamlet, 'Lord of the Flies', 'The Lonelines of the Long
Distance Runner', 'Name of the Rose', 'Julius Ceasar' and many other
legendary works of literature are part and parcel of Iron Maiden's
discography. In this series of unique educational books, 'Iron Maiden and
Classic Literature', for the first time in history I'll take you on a magical journey
where art and the imagination erase all boundaries, merging beautifully into
songs that have become part of the soundtrack to our lives.
NEXT BOOK FROM THIS SERIES:
RIME
OF THE
ANCIENT MARINER
99
Croatian Iron Maiden fan club; www.maidencroatia.com
100

Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in The Rue Morgue

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OVO JE STRANICA BROJ NULA

OVI LAVOVI NA IDUĆOJ STRANICI (BROJ 1) TREBAJU BITI S DESNE STRANE

Confirming this information with my signature:

All written content besides Edgar Allan Poe's story

Translation, adaptation and proof-reading of Juras' text

Cover design, illustration and layout

Copyright © (except Poe's story) Stjepan Juras 2020

Cataloguing-in-Publication data available in the Online Catalogue of the

For information on all Stjepan Juras publications please

Zadar, March 2020

To the fans by a fan

An authentic picture of Edgar Allan Poe's corpse in morgue.

The website www.poeforward.com contains a plethora of facts about

“Griswold was a notorious blackmailer... I myself had to pay him money to

Edgar Allan Poe's original and memorial burial place in Baltimore.

Maria and Virginia Clemm.

The services, planned at Westminster Hall near the Westminster Burial

Both Griswold and Poe shared a fanatical commitment to upholding the

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but

"There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and not at first

"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not hesitate

"The fruiterer! --you astonish me --I know no fruiterer whomsoever."

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

"Extraordinary Murders. --This morning, about three o'clock, the inhabitants

"After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, without farther

The next day's paper had these additional particulars.

"Adolphe Le Bon, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day in

"Alfonzo Garcio, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue Morgue. Is a

"Alberto Montani, confectioner, deposes that he was among the first to

"Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other persons

been arrested and imprisoned --although nothing appeared to criminate him,

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar,"

I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

with whose language he is conversant --but the converse. The Frenchman

Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the

"There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by

exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin

"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most

"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual --this is no

I made the attempt in vain.

"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."

True; and you will remember an expression attributed almostunanimously, by

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

"Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

"To be sure I am, sir."

"I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin.

The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with suffocation. He

punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and skipped

* Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloise.

THE FATHER OF ALL DETECTIVES

In Poe's dialogue ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una’, he tells us a Judgment

Poe's trademark is that he almost always emphasized scientific credibility in

But all this is merely scratching the surface. In addition to phrenology, a

Poe is considered by some to be the greatest cryptographer of all time. For a

foundations for it all. Through centuries of written history, it was always

Mystery and science fiction as practiced by Poe were acknowledged by realist

published in April 1841. The profession of private detective was a relatively

The following information is available on Wikipedia about Poe's inspiration

POE – LEGACY OF THE MIST

Since the mid-19th century, the intersection of the supernatural and

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed a choral symphony for the Russian translation