Book Review: The Thousand and Second Arabian Night and The Mystery of Marie Roget

I've finally caught back up to events after my fast, but not quite to the present. Expect real-time posts starting next week when I'm back at school.

Through a chain of events, I found myself at Josh's house with nothing to do. I availed myself of his Poe collection and proceeded to pick out some stories I hadn't read yet. The two I chose were, as the post title indicates, "The Thousand and Second Arabian Night" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget."

I was in the mood for some stereotypical Poe: dark and fantastic with a hint of depression and/or madness. The first story I picked, "The Thousand and Second Arabian Night,"  didn't fit that category, but it was still an interesting read. I learned a lot of new facts, which I've probably mostly forgotten already. The premise was this: after the thousand and first Arabian night, Scheherazade continued to tell stories of Sinbad's travels. On the thousand and second night, all the sights and wonders from her story were based on real things (Mammoth Caves was one, but I forget the rest) described in unusual but truthful ways. In the end, the king decided her story was far too ridiculous and had her executed.

I picked the next story because I recognized it as one in my collection of Poe stories, but I had somehow not read it yet. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" was Poe's second mystery story and was based on details and news articles from real events in New York City surrounding Mary Rogers' apparent murder. According to Josh's anthology, Poe solved the mystery correctly based solely on these newspaper excerpts. According to every other account I've found on the internet, he was wrong. He even released an edited version of the story in which the detective reasoned that Marie died as Mary actually did. It wasn't exactly the sort of story I was in the mood for either, but I enjoyed it more than I did the first I read. I do love a mystery story every so often.

Story Information
Titles: The Thousand and Second Arabian Night, The Mystery of Marie Roget
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Years Published: 1845, 1842