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Originally Posted by GA Russell
Americans claim that the first mystery was Murder on the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe, which was a locked room mystery.
I wonder if the countries which claim earlier books to be the first mystery are also referring to locked room stories.
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Americans may claim that the first mystery novel was written by Poe, but it was not. A norwegian named
Maurits Hansen wrote "The murder of engine builder Rolfsen" in 1839, two years before Poe wrote "The Murders on the Rue Morgue", and I have heard that a danish author may have written a mystery even earlier that that. But for the first locked room mystery, I believe Poe gets the credit for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's a shame that so few of John Dickson Carr's books are available as eBooks. There are only about half a dozen available.
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More will come. Too bad that Langtail Press (who published this half a dozen ebooks) doesn't seem to grow their collection of books anymore.
Carr is my favorite author of all times, and no other author has given us more intricate and intriguing puzzles. I have solved puzzles by Agatha Christie, Q. Patrick, P. D. James, Ellery Queen and others, but I have never even managed to solve even one puzzle by Carr. And when it comes to impossible crimes, Carr is simply the mastermind of all times. He managed to compose mysteries of the utmost ingenious type in only a couple of months; from the middle of the thirties up to the second world war, when paper rationing started, he published four and even five books a year (!), together with some other material. Top quality books and high production: in my opinion, no one else has ever come close to his level of brilliance