"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was first published in the April 1841 issue of Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia, where Edgar Allan Poe was living at the time. Because of it was different than many stories that were popular, publishers were at first reluctant to accept this story. Poe had even tried to include it in a second edition printing of his two-volume short story collection, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, with this being a grotesque tale due to the gory murder scene that C. Auguste Dupin investigates and solves. However, the publisher was not willing to include this story, given that the collection had sold rather slowly and did not want to risk making it even less marketable with such a gruesome tale as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Thus, the story was finally published soon afterwards in Graham's Magazine, where Poe had begun on a job as editor during the same month this story was published, in April 1841. The general reaction from Poe's readers was favorable overall but, as his book published had feared, the gruesome murder scene and vivid imagery that Poe employs in detailing the condition of Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye's bodies (the former having been stuffed into the chimney, and the latter decapitated and tossed out of a fourth story window) tended to disgust some people and led to criticism. This did not prevent the story from being published again several times, with French-translation versions of the story being sold overseas as well.