A Landmark Story's Anniversary

he Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor: It was on this day in 1841 that the first "detective story" was published: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," by Edgar Allan Poe (books by this author). In the story, C. August Dupin reads about the murder of a mother and daughter in a Paris street. The police are baffled, and Dupin decides to offer up his services. He finds a hair at the crime scene that he realizes does not belong to a human, and eventually he pieces together enough evidence to solve the case: The murder was committed by an orangutan who had been held in captivity by a sailor and who murdered the first woman with a straight razor and the second by strangling her.