The Beautiful Cigar Girl : Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder

On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl, was found floating in the Hudson-and New York's unregulated police force proved incapable of solving the crime. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt." The Washington Post - Timothy J. Gilfoyle Stashower deftly combines his talents as a novelist, mystery writer and biographer in The Beautiful Cigar Girl . "On July 28, 1841, the battered body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl who had disappeared three days earlier, was found floating in the Hudson. By nightfall, news of the death had sent Manhattan into a spasm of horror and outrage. In the months following, the grisly details of the murder pushed American journalism into new realms of lurid sensationalism. Despite the media pressure, New York's unregulated, disjointed police force proved unable to mount an effective investigation, and the crime remained unsolved. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-- and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" ..."--Back cover The author of Edgar winner "Teller of Tales" recounts the story of Manhattan tobacco store clerk Mary Rogers, whose murder in 1841 fueled a public outcry. Edgar Allan Poe began a fictional magazine serial featuring his famous detective Dupin speculating on the murder of the working-class girl, thus beginning the modern detective story Traces the July 1841 murder investigation that was marked by sensational media coverage and the debut of Edgar Allen Poe, whose short stories "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" associated him with the crime IN JUNE OF 1842, Edgar Allan Poe took up his pen to broach a delicate subject with an old friend.