Scan barcode
A review by gjmaupin
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower
2.0
Not bad - fascinating story. The trouble is, as is a risk with non-fiction "true crime" (literary or no), it's never solved, so the suspense is kind of for naught; plus, Poe's life is forty years of the same self-destructive pattern, which is unfortunate for a biographer, because no matter how much research you do, only so much can make it interesting.
I wonder if this started as a Poe bio and the author figured the Mary Rogers story is more interesting.
Still, intriguing looks into daily life in the mid- and lower- tiers of urban America in them days.
I wonder if this started as a Poe bio and the author figured the Mary Rogers story is more interesting.
Still, intriguing looks into daily life in the mid- and lower- tiers of urban America in them days.