Almost a year ago I mentioned I was reading a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. After taking a couple of breaks I am now very close to the end. I knew that long before Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock, there was Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin, but until yesterday I had never read “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
Doyle wasn’t just inspired by Poe, Holmes could almost be a continuation of the Dupin series. Everything in “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” found its way into Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation of Holmes, including the narrator, who may as well be Doctor Watson. I sort of knew this, but now I know it.
My heretofore ignorance of the matter, impressed upon me for these many years by my own negligence, made me laugh in such a manner as I have not experienced in many a day! The longstanding failure to take the necessary action in resolving my curiosity, despite having a sense of propinquity regarding the subject, shall forever be a nagging reminder of my limitless capacity for procrastination. Having indulged at last a reading of the original text, I am intrigued not only by the tale itself as realized in the fertile imagination of its short-lived author, but also by the writing style that contains what are, by today’s standards, passages of a certain quaint opacity that are nonetheless compelling in their vividness and vigor.
Here is the story as told by Christopher Lee.
Here is the text of the story, so you can read along with Lee’s narration, which begins in the #119 section, after “The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tales_(Poe)/The_Murders_in_the_Rue_Morgue