What is the advent/invention of a detective story?
Detective fiction, as we know it today, truly began in 1841 when Edgar Allan Poe introduced Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Two women were brutally murdered in a baffling and grotesque manner, the police appear baffled, Dupin leads his own investigation and succeeds were the regular authorities have failed, so setting in stone the basis of countless detective fiction novels to come. Some suggest that Voltaire’s Zadig was the catalyst, though whilst not without some foundation, most agree that it was Poe who initially brought all the main ingredients together for the first time. Dupin was to enjoy two further outings in The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842-43) and The Purloined Letter (1845). With these well crafted and occasionally ingenious plots Poe originated, the now formulaic, basic subplot and requirements of the detective fiction story; A brilliant detective and a baffling crime which requires superior intelligence to solve. Helped along b
