The Mystery of Marie Roget and Other Tales

Unique collection of short stories

Presented as A Sequel to ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ was inspired by the murder of a well-known New York beauty, whose body was found in the Hudson River on 28th July 1841. Just like its predecessor, this story – which also features C. Auguste Dupin, the French detective who solved the Rue Morgue case – is one of the earliest examples of the true-crime murder mystery, and is justly regarded as one of the highest points of the entire genre.

Alongside ‘Marie Rogêt’, this volume, which completes Alma’s edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s fiction works, includes a wide variety of tales, spanning from his very early beginnings as a writer, with light-hearted skits such as ‘The Duc de l’Omelette’ and ‘Bon-Bon’, to rollicking adventure stories, fables, dialogues between spirits and parodies such as ‘Mellonta Tauta’ and ‘X-ing a Paragrab’, which he penned only a few months before his premature death in 1849. Taken together, they consolidate Poe’s reputation as one of the greatest and most eclectic storytellers of all time.

Contains: The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, Mesmeric Revelation, The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, The Island of the Fay, The Assignation, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq., X-ing a Paragrab, The Angel of the Odd, Mellonta Tauta, The Man That Was Used Up, The Businessman, The Power of Words, The Colloquy of Monos and Una, The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion, Shadow, Silence, A Tale of Jerusalem, Thou Art The Man, Four Beasts in One, Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling, Bon-Bon, The Domain of Arnheim, The Spectacles, The Duc de l’Omelette, King Pest, Three Sundays in a Week, Lionizing.

About the Author

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. Born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809; he was informally adopted by the Allans of Richmond after his parents' death. He attended the University of Virginia and briefly attempted a military career, before embarking on a literary career. After publishing an anonymous collection of poems in 1827, Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals. He married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in 1835, who died in 1842 not long after publishing his famous poem ‘The Raven'. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), but died in 1849 before being able to see it produced.