Text: Charles Gordon Greene (???), “[Review of Tales],” Boston Post (Boston, MA), vol. XXVII, no. 6, July 8, 1845, p. 1, col. 5

[page 1, column 5, continued:]

Library of American Books, No. 3. — Wiley and Putnam have just issued another of their elegant series. It contains several of those prose tales of Edgar A. Poe, and is for sale by Saxton and Kelt. Among them are those extraordinary stories, “murders [[Murders]] in the Rue Morgue,” “Marie Rogêt,” and the “Purloined Letter” — in which the author exhibits wonderful ingenuity in obtaining and tracing out circumstantial evidence. “Marie Rogêt” will be recognized at once, as a French paraphrase of “Mary Rogers,” the cigar-girl of New York, who was mrudered some years since at Hoboken. There is not an uninteresting or mediocre tale in the volume. Mr Poe is, without doubt, one of the most individual and peculiar writers in the country. With much odd learning, he has an odd mind, and the combination of the two produces very singular results. As a critic, he lacks comprehensiveness, and, in consequence, impartiality — but where nothing is required but acuteness and clearness upon particular points, as in the tales under notice, he is almost unrivalled.