![]() Only Dupin has the wit and the powers of “ratiocination” (Poe’s word for the process of analysis) necessary to crack the case. In what would become another tradition of the genre, the regular police are blundering and baffled. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" are not only English literature’s first true detective mystery, but also the first instance of a “locked room” plot-the brutally mutilated body of one of the two victims is found in a bedchamber, locked from the inside-and from which there is no other apparent exit. To illustrate Dupin’s process, he offers a striking example: a miraculous piece of “mind-reading” that is revealed to have been the result of observation, imagination, and mental sharpness (Conan Doyle was so impressed with this dazzling performance, he has Holmes pull off the same trick on Watson not once, but twice-in The Adventure of the Cardboard Box and The Adventure of the Dancing Man ). This grizzly story of a bloody double homicide begins with the anonymous narrator-who shares a “time-eaten and grotesque mansion” with Dupin in central Paris-outlining his companion’s methods of analysis (fittingly chess features in the explanation). Related: 10 Classic Mystery Novels Everyone Should Read The methods Poe had used in exposing The Turk as a fraud, would later be refined in his cryptographic mystery tale "The Gold Bug", before blossoming bloodily into life in 1841, when readers were introduced to the Chevalier Dupin in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". His essay on the workings of The Turk-published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836-was not accurate to the finest detail, but Poe’s conclusion-that the miraculous automaton was actually operated by a skilled chess player hidden inside the machinery-was soon proved to be the truth. To do so, he collected evidence through keen observation, analyzed all that he could read on the mechanical man, and tested various hypotheses against the facts. Curious, he tasked himself with finding out if the mechanical marvel was genuine, or a hoax. ![]() Poe saw the Turk in whirring, jerking action in Richmond, Virginia in the 1830s. Amongst those who were amazed by the steel-and-wood contraption were Empress Maria-Theresa, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Benjamin Franklin. A clockwork automaton (an early form of what we’d now call a robot), The Turk played chess to such a high level it could defeat most human opponents. The Mechanical Turk had been built by Wolfgang von Kempelen of Austria in 1870. Poe’s interest in the concepts of logical detection was sparked by an encounter with one of the philosophical wonders of the early nineteenth century. ![]()
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