Although artists’ renderings suggest otherwise, Mary Rogers was quite the dish. For a brief period in the mid-1800s, she was known as “the beautiful cigar girl” in New York, the John Anderson’s Tobacco Emporium employee so hot that even non-smokers would come in to take a look.
Then one day in July 1841, her dead body washed ashore. The mystery behind her death and the mysteries it led to are recounted in Daniel Stashower’s absorbing nonfiction work, THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL: MARY ROGERS, EDGAR ALLAN POE, AND THE INVENTION OF MURDER.
To this day, Rogers’ murder isn’t completely solved, though the late-in-the-game revelations Stashower wisely holds are astounding. But the investigation – botched as it was, to be kind – was full of leads that went nowhere, wild accusations and much libelous finger-pointing among the city’s warring tabloids.
As interesting as all that is, the effect it had on a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe possesses equal appeal. Smarting over minor criticism of his “The Murders of the Rue Morgue,” Poe was looking to follow it up with what would become “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.” Not only did he base it on the Rogers case, but he claimed he would solve the real-life murder in it, thereby inadvertently inventing a whole new fiction genre. However, its serialized nature threw a monkey wrench into his plan when the aforementioned shocker was dropped before his final piece saw print.
Having been all but lost to history (though her corpse immortalized in detective fiction), Rogers is a cipher, but Poe always makes for a great subject, and Stashower gets mileage out of emphasizing the writer’s darker shades of his oft-repellent personality. The last chunk of THE BEAUTIFUL CIGAR GIRL may get too bogged down following Poe’s process of penning “Rogêt,” but that aside, you’re getting two great mysteries in one.
With the factual story veering into suicide, sullied reputations and secret-destroying unmentionables, it’s easy to see why Poe was so intrigued to it, even if its most scandalous factors wouldn’t even come to light until after his first draft. By the same token, it’s easy to see why Stashower wanted to devote a whole book to retell it. That he pulls it off makes this a mystery must. –Rod Lott
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