Quoth the Raven “Not fair"

 

Sara Johnson, 1^st Sundays

I suspect, because you read Murder is Everywhere, that you like learning about the mystery and crime genre. Because so many people do, I designed a six-part course entitled Exploring Mysteries. I’ve taught the class at NC State and Duke Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. It always fills to capacity. In session one – History of Mystery – I ask participants what the earliest detective story was. The frequent response is Edgar Allen Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue, published serially in 1841.

Poe was paid handsomely for it: $56. (He only receive $9 for “The Raven.”) The brutal murders of a woman and her daughter occur in their locked Paris apartment, kick starting the locked-room mystery trope. Amateur detective M. Auguste Dupin uses deductive reasoning to solve the case. (The story, if you haven’t read it, is in the public domain.)

                                           

Spoiler alert: The culprit is an escaped orangutan who climbed in through an open window. Thriller writer Adrian McKinty said, “Do that nowadays and your book would rightfully get chucked, probably back at your own head, during a signing.

But Rue Morgue wasn’t the first detective story. French writer and philosopher Voltaire penned an example of detective fiction almost 100 years earlier. The novella Zadig, published in 1747, tells the story of a young Babylonian man – Zadig – who encounters troubles due to his virtues. While not containing the components of a modern mystery (victim, murderer, clues, red herrings, etc.), Zadig uses deductive reasoning to assist the King’s huntsman.

                                                                      

King’s Huntsman: Have you seen the King’s Palfrey run by?

Zadig: No horse ever gallop’d smoother; he is about five Foot high, his Hoofs are very small: his tail is about three Foot six Inches long; the studs of his bit are pure Gold ...

King’s Huntsman: Whereabouts is he?

Zadig: I never sat Eyes on him, not I.

Her Majesty’s dog is missing, too. Zadig describes her: She has had Puppies too lately; she’s a little lame with her left Fore-foot, and has long Ears. Yet he claims to have never seen the dog. The huntsman, in disbelief, sentences Zadig to life in Siberia for stealing both horse and dog. Luckily, Zadig has his day in court. He explains how his use of observation and deduction – tracks in the sand, swished dust, gold flecks on rocks, etc – led to his conclusion and he is exonerated.

Poe, who was versed in French literature, was probably influenced by Zadig. The same is true for Arthur Conan Doyle, who came on the scene in 1887 with “A Study in Scarlet.”Almost this exact phrase appears in five Sherlock Holmes stories: “It seemed to me that a careful examination of the room and the lawn might possibly reveal some traces of this mysterious individual. You know my methods, Watson.”

But let’s not jump ahead.

                                                                          

Caleb Williams by William Godwin, published in 1794, is classified as an early mystery thriller. The novella contains a murder, its detection, and suspenseful cat-and-mouse pursuit. This was followed in 1819 by the novella Mademoiselle De Scudéri by German author E.T.A. Hoffman. The detective is an elderly woman, the murder victims are young men, there’s a serial killer, and it includes elements modern readers expect in crime fiction such as interviews and hidden clues. Much later it was adapted as on opera, film, and graphic novel.

                                                              

Another pre-Rue Morgue work of early detection is “The Secret Cell,” published serially in The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1837. Though the story lacks the puzzle plot of later mysteries, it features a missing heiress and an unnamed intelligent police detective. (Fun Fact: It’s author, William Evans Burton, may have been married to three women at the same time.)

                                                               

Serialization in magazines was a low-cost way to gauge the public’s response to the story, novella, or novel. If the work flopped, there was no need to produce a book.

“The Haunted Homestead” by Henry William Herbert came out one year before The Murders in the Rue Morgue and has three parts: The Murder, The Mystery, and The Revelation. Author and blogger Tim Prasil describes it as clearly a murder mystery spotlighting a semi-Sherlockian investigator and weaving in supernatural events to spark and propel the investigation. 

Here’s a snippet from the murder scene in Part I: One cry for mercy! one long, sick thrilling gasp! one fluttering shudder of the convulsed and lifeless limbs! and his heart’s blood was mingled with the turbulent stream – and he lay at the feet of his destroyer.

Yikes! 

I am unaware of any female crime writers before Metta Victoria Fuller Victor’s The Dead Letter. It’s credited for being the first detective story written by a woman, but it didn’t come out until 1866. If you know of earlier works by women, please share with me and I’ll add them to my class.

It’s fun to know the origins of this popular genre. Until next month, friends -

Sara E. Johnson, 1^st Sundays