Poe, Father of Detective Fiction


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(This page is under construction.)

Poe is the unchallenged creator of the modern detective story. Virtually all of the conventions we recognize today originated in his writings. Sherlock Holmes may have referred disparagingly to Dupin, but Arthur Conan Doyle himself acknowledged his debt to Poe.


The Dupin Trilogy:

  • “Murders in the Rue Morgue”
  • “Mystery of Marie Roget”
  • “The Purloined Letter”

Other Tales of Ratiocination:

  • “Thou Art the Man”
  • “The Gold-Bug”
  • “The Man of the Crowd”

Bibliography:

  • Brophy, Brigid, “Detective Fiction: A Modern Myth of Violence?,” Hudson Review, XVIII, Spring 1965, pp. 11-30.
  • Fusco, Richard, Fin de millenaire: Poe's Legacy for the Detective Story, Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1993.
  • Haycraft, Howard, “Father of the Detective Story,” Saturday Review of Literature, XXIV, August 23, 1941, pp. 12-15.
  • Irwin, John T.,  The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994
  • Kopley, Richard, Edgar Allan Poe and “The Philadelpia Saturday News” , Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1991. (This pamphlet includes references to several possible sources used by Poe.)
  • Mathews, Brander, “Poe and the Detective Story,” Scribner's Magazine, XLII, August 1907, pp. 287-293.
  • Paul, Raymond, Who Murdered Mary Rodgers?, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1971.
  • Rosenbach, A. W. S., “Trail of Scarlet,” Saturday Evening Post, CCV, October 1, 1932, pp. 8-9, 32, 34, 36.
  • Walsh, John,  Poe the Detective: The Curious Circumstances Behind “The Mystery of Marie Roget”, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1968.
  • Williams, Valentine, “The Detective in Fiction,” Fortnightly Review, No. 128, September 1930, pp. 380-392.


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[S:0 - JAS] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Poe, Father of Detective Fiction