Poe and the beautiful Segar girl

Josef Škvorecký

pp. 1-9

in: Warren Chernaik, Martin Swales, Robert Vilain (eds), The art of detective fiction, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

There have already been articles and essays written under the title of this chapter, referring to Poe's story "The Mystery of Marie Roget", and its source and background, the unsolved murder of Mary Rogers of New York. At one time, this unfortunate young woman made a living as a cigar or — using the spelling of the time — 'segar" girl, a shop attendant in John Anderson's cigar store on Broadway. But my title derives from the title of a feature film, Poe and the Death of a Beautiful Girl, which I wrote for the Czech Television Company. It was produced in the spring of 1996 in Prague, and edited and mixed at the Barrandov studios in that city. The writing of the script for the film was a labour of love, not a commercial enterprise. It was the result of a life-long affection for the first of the world's poètes maudits.

Cited authors

Anderson John