Murder on Mogu Street

Author: (American) Edgar Allan Poe
Translator: Zhang Chong, Zhang Qiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: "America produced two great writers—Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain," as Shaw once remarked. This demonstrates the pivotal role of Poe in American and world literature. This selection includes representative works from Poe's novels, as well as his only novel that can be considered a long one (incomplete) and sometimes counted as a short one, aiming to provide a relatively appropriate choice for readers who cannot finish all of his works. Among them, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, The Purloined Letter, and The Golden Bug are regarded as the epitomes of Poe's detective fiction, their influence still evident in detective novels worldwide today; Berenice, Ligeia, and Morella are uniquely characteristic of Edgar Allan Poe, leaving a deep impression on readers with their descriptions of "the beauty of death" and "the death of beauty"; The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Premature Burial, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Facts in the Case of Mr. Waldemar explore another common theme in Poe's works: extreme physical and mental distortion, decay, and death, as well as the author's deliberate pursuit of a terrifying effect; The Tell-Tale Heart, The Devil in the Belfry, and The Black Cat continue the themes of the previous group of stories to some extent but delve deeper into the depths of the human psyche, touching on psychological and unconscious, subconscious levels, though the protagonists in most of these stories exhibit traits of madness and mania; The Business Man, The Glass Eye, and The Therapy of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether are among the few comic stories in Poe's works, with plots that remain intricate and engaging, while also containing irony and satire, making it easy for discerning readers to notice. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, left unfinished, follows the protagonist's maritime adventures as its thread, encompassing the essence of Poe's short story themes in its twists and turns. Reading it alongside similar works by contemporaries such as Melville may yield even greater rewards.