Poe Publishes First Detective Story: The Mystery Genre Is Born
Edgar Allan Poe published "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in Graham's Magazine in April 1841, creating the detective fiction genre with a single short story. His detective, C. Auguste Dupin, solved crimes through pure analytical reasoning, a method Poe called "ratiocination." The story features locked-room mystery conventions, a brilliant amateur detective who outperforms the police, and a surprise solution involving an escaped orangutan. Arthur Conan Doyle openly acknowledged Dupin as the model for Sherlock Holmes, though Holmes dismissively calls Dupin "a very inferior fellow." The story earned Poe $56. He followed it with two more Dupin tales, establishing the template that mystery writers from Agatha Christie to modern forensic procedurals still follow.
April 20, 1841
185 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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