Edgar Allan Poe and Detective Fiction

As a history buff, I am interested in exploring the origins of the detective fiction genre. Most people know of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, but Doyle’s inspiration for the character is just as fascinating: Edgar Allan Poe’s detective stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin.

Poe wrote three short stories with Dupin, who investigates crimes in Paris by using his extraordinary deduction skills. Poe’s first story featuring Dupin, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” was written in 1841 whereas Doyle’s first story with Holmes, “A Study in Scarlet,” appeared in 1887. This first story introduces many of the common tropes found in detective fiction: an unsolvable crime, unclear motive, and a surprise twist ending. The narrator of the three stories is friends with Dupin and is drawn to him in a similar way Dr. Watson is in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Poe’s second story with Dupin, “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” was based on a real unsolved murder that happened in New York City. By setting the same crime in Paris, Poe, through Dupin, deduces the profile of the real murderer. In the story they catch the murderer in an aside note, but the actual crime remains unsolved.

“The Purloined Letter” is the final story with Dupin where he outwits a minister who has stolen a letter with sensitive information to extort the queen. The Prefect of the Parisian police assumes the minister has stashed the letter somewhere in his large estate, but Dupin deduces that the minister has hidden it in plain sight in his office to throw off investigators. Dupin deceives the minister by using a distraction to replace the stolen letter with a fake.

It is interesting to see the similarities between Dupin and Holmes. Like Holmes, Dupin is not employed by law enforcement, but they seek his help with complicated cases. Both characters notice small details of a particular case and use their powers of deduction to come to conclusions overlooked by the initial investigations by police. At the end of a case, each character explains to the narrator about their logical deductions and how they arrived at their conclusions.

Reading these stories has provided an interesting look into the origins of the detective fiction genre. If you are curious about the inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes, the C. Auguste Dupin short stories are worth a look.

Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

ISBN: 9780785814535

Publication Date: 2009-11-29

In Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems, fans may indulge in all of Poe's most imaginative short-stories, including The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart, Ligeia, and Ms. In a Bottle. His complete early and miscellaneous poetic masterpieces are here also, including The Raven, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, Tamerlane, as well as select reviews and narratives. The life of American writer Edgar Allan Poe was characterized by a dramatic series of successes and failures, breakdowns and recoveries, personal gains and hopes dashed through, despite which he created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. Over time, his works have influenced such major creative forces as the French poets Charles Baudelaire and Andre Gide, filmmaker D.W. Griffith, and modern literary legend Allen Ginsberg. Best known for his poems and short fiction, Poe perfected the psychological thriller, invented the detective story, and rarely missed transporting the reader to his own supernatural realm. He has also been hailed posthumously as one of the finest literary critics of the nineteenth century.