This April marks the 175th anniversary of the publication of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders of the Rue Morgue. It was the first of the three stories to feature C. Auguste Dupin, the first literary detective. Later writers, including Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, would cite Poe and Dupin as their inspiration.
Fitting, as it is also the time of year for the Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America.
It’s the week of the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival, and watching it from afar is both lovely and heartbreaking. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The first known use of the word “gobbledeygook” has a surprisingly official purpose.
I also took a cool course in college called “The Detective and Criminal in Literature.” It was the first time I felt ‘allowed’ to study these works as literature rather than only pleasure reading. It really changed my trajectory.
I took a detective story class in college, which was my first encounter with Poe’s detective stories. It’s kind of crazy that that was the first time someone used a detective in a story. Poe: so ahead of his time.
Love the gobelldeygook story. I should show that to my students who keep trying to write to sound smart instead of to be clear and understood.