The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842)


Dupin, part deux...

Mary, Mary...quite contrary...how did your murder go? 

Art imitates life.  Edgar Poe wrote his second installment of the "Dupin murder mysteries" around the 1841 murder of Mary Rogers.  He simply "frenchied up" the name and place...from New York City to Paris and Mary to Marie.  This story heralds the dawn of real life crime being woven into a story, and differs from Rue Morgue in this respect.  Mary's murder was never solved, and her strangulation remains unsolved to this day.  The owner of the tavern in which Mary was last seen alive supposedly revealed what had happened to Mary as she lay on her deathbed.  Frederica Loss was accidently shot by her son a year after Mary's body was found floating in the Hudson and changed her story about seeing Mary dining in her place with a tall, dark stranger on the night of her disappearance.  Supposedly the "truth" was Mary was the victim of a botched abortion, and her body was made to look like murder to protect those who had participated in the procedure that had gone awry.  Whether this is the case, who knows...none of the investigators this late in the game really believed Frederica's fresh "confession".  Mary Rogers, the extremely pretty cigar girl who's extraordinary looks brought in business and famous clientele to Anderson's Tobacco Shop, was sensationalized, and then forgotten...lost to the obscurity of history...overshadowed by another killing a few weeks later, this time involving Sam Colt's brother and whether or not he pulled the trigger in self-defense...

The specter of Mary can still be seen in Marie...haunting the work of one of America's first great storytellers...who himself met a rather mysterious end.  Perhaps that is ironic, seeing as she personally peddled stogies to the likes of Cooper, Irving...and Poe...

Dupin is on the case...look out Sherlock...

The Mystery of Marie Rogêt was serialized in a magazine called The Ladies Companion from November 1842 into 1843...and you can find an original copy of the story here, starting on p.15...