On This Day April 20

Published on April 20, 1841, Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue was the first ever detective story. The short story established many tropes that would become common elements in mystery fiction: the eccentric but brilliant detective, the bumbling constabulary, the storytelling device where the detective announces his solution and then explains the reasoning leading up to it. Though widely read and admired, Murders in the Rue Morgue did not popularize the genre.

Poe's original manuscript for "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

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