Detective Fiction began in the mid 1800’s when Edgar Allan Poe first created his character C. Auguste Dupin. In fact, the word detective did not even exist at the time and Poe’s groundbreaking “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” can be considered the first story of its kind. (LibraryPoint) Dupin set many precedents that later detectives were sure to follow. He came from an upper class background and used intense logic to find clues only uncovered through deep reading. (LibraryPoint) These characteristics helped shape perhaps the most popular detective in all of literature; Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock embodies the persona of “hyperanalytic investigative genius and a shrewdly inventive hypothesizer” (Snodgrass). These characteristics can largely be attributed to Poe’s original, Dupin. For example, Dupin alludes to his “investigative genius” during an interrogation when he snarls “From what I have already said, you must know that I have had means of information about this matter --means of which you could never have dreamed” (Poe). Dupin is explaining to the Sailor, whom Dupin blames for the crime, that he has already acquired information in ways that the sailor would assume Dupin had no ability to. Sherlock is described with this same zeal for discovering the truth. Here, Watson describes Sherlock in the book “The Sign of the Four”; "So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made" (Snodgrass). Sherlock’s character continued the role of the detective, but took its popularity to new heights. Through over 50 stories his popularity spread detective fiction to mainstream America. (LibraryPoint)
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