Which author created the detective C. Auguste Dupin?

Edgar Allan Poe created the detective C. Auguste Dupin.

Dupin first appeared in Poe’s 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” often regarded as the first modern detective story. He returned in “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842) and “The Purloined Letter” (1844).

Dupin is not a professional police investigator. Instead, he solves cases through what Poe called “ratiocination”—a blend of close observation, logic, imagination, and psychological insight. The stories are narrated by Dupin’s unnamed companion, a pattern later echoed by Dr. Watson’s role beside Sherlock Holmes.

A common mix-up is to credit Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes appeared decades later. Holmes was influenced by Poe’s detective fiction, but Dupin came first. Poe’s character is French, lives in Paris, and is portrayed as an eccentric intellectual rather than an official detective.