THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (A Sequel to "The Murder in the Rue Morgue")

790 3 0
                                    

THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET 

A Sequel to "The Murder in the Rue Morgue" 

by Edgar Allan Poe 

INTRODUCTION

There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real 

ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the 

ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its 

consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead 

of Protestantism came Lutheranism.

Novalis. Moral Ansichten.

Upon the original publication of "Marie Roget," the footnotes now 

appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several years 

since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it expedient 

to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of the 

general design. A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the 

vicinity of New York; and although her death occasioned an intense and 

long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had remained 

unsolved at the period when the present paper was written and 

published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the 

fate of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed, in minute 

detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential, facts 

of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon 

the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the 

truth was the object. 

The "Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a distance from the 

scene of the atrocity, and with no other means of investigation than 

the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the writer of which he 

could have availed himself had he been upon the spot and visited the 

localities. It may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the 

confessions of two persons (one of them the Madame Deluc of the 

narrative), made, at different periods, long subsequent to the 

publication, confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, 

but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that 

conclusion was attained. 

THERE ARE few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not 

occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence in 

the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a 

character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to 

receive them. Such sentiments- for the half-credences of which I speak 

have never the full force of thought- such sentiments are seldom 

thoroughly stifled unless by reference to the doctrine of chance, 

The works of Edgar Allan PoeWhere stories live. Discover now