Edgar Allan Poe wrote three short stories featuring the detective C. Auguste Dupin: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” and “The Purloined Letter.”
Dupin is not a police detective. He is an intensely analytical amateur who helps Paris police prefect “G.” solve cases that seem impossible through observation, logic, and what Poe called “ratiocination.” His unnamed companion narrates all three stories, creating the model later used for Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
The first story, published in 1841, is often called the first modern detective story. “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” adapts the real murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New York, while “The Purloined Letter” turns detection into a battle of intellect between Dupin and Minister D—. Poe’s detective appears only three times, although his influence extends across detective fiction.