It is the very first time that I ask question here , and it may be a stupid quetion.But I really hope that I can get some help here.

In every version of "The Mystery of Mary Rogers" I read, I found that the final part of the book was deleted by the original publisher....why did they do this? And where can I find the deleted part?

-- Wei-chung Yang

-- Anonymous, August 21, 2001

Answers

Poe deleted part of "Berenice." Poe revised the "Mystery of Marie Roget" in republishing the story in 1845, but no "part" was deleted.

-- Anonymous, August 21, 2001

Poe himself wrote (in a letter to George W. Eveleth in 1848) that "-- Nothing was omitted in 'Marie Roget' but what I omitted myself:--all that is mystification. The story was originally published in Snowden's 'Lady's Companion'. The 'naval officer' who committed the murder (or rather the accidental death arising from an attempt at abortion) confessed it; and the whole matter is now well understood-- but, for the sake of relatives, his is a topic on which I must not speak further."

Poe was reportedly two-thirds of the way through writing "The Mystery of Marie Roget," (based on the true-life crime story of the Mary Rogers murder), when new facts about the case came out that destroyed the original ending. And, the facts behind the true-life case--that of a botched abortion--were probably deemed inappropriate for popular fiction of that day. One can only guess why he felt compelled to offer the story for publication in that truncated form.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2002