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,
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