The Beautiful Cigar Girl, Daniel Stashower
The Beautiful Cigar Girl, Daniel Stashower
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Beautiful Cigar Girl
Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder

Author: Daniel Stashower

Narrator: Matt Weisgerber

Unabridged: 12 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/26/2023

Synopsis

On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl, was found floating in the Hudson—and New York's unregulated police force proved incapable of solving the crime. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case—and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt."

About Daniel Stashower

Daniel Stashower is an acclaimed biographer and narrative historian and winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Anthony awards, as well as the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellowship in Detective Fiction. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, AARP: The Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and American History as well as other publications. His books include The Hour of Peril, Teller of Tales, and The Beautiful Cigar Girl.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carol on January 03, 2013

There are parts of this book that are very engaging and interesting -- life in lower Manhattan in the 1830s and 40s, for example; the beach and spring scene in Hoboken along the Hudson River, the sad and tragic case of Mary Rogers, and of course Poe's life story. But this book fails to find a convinc......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on January 20, 2009

Mary Rogers (the Beautiful Cigar Girl of the title) worked at John Anderson’s Tobacco Emporium in 19th century Manhattan. She was quite famous at the time as well as the main attraction at the store. Mary went out one day and never came home -- as her family began to become distraught at her disappe......more

Goodreads review by Jonathan on August 28, 2008

Being a Poe enthusiast as well as a history and true crime buff, I have found this book fascinating. The author does a good job of telling two stories at the same time - first the story of Poe, his upbringing and his erratic behavior throughout his life and second the story of the beautiful and tra......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on June 06, 2016

Part bio of Edgar Allen Poe, and part True Crime . I kept thinking that in the hands of Erik Larson or Simon Winchester this might flow better. But it might be that Poe kept repeating his sober to drunkness cycle leading to a feeling " I can skip that."section. Still informative about a forgotten pa......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List