Poe: Inventor of the Detective Story? Part 1

Many readers become familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre as teenagers. But Poe also produced science-fiction stories and the first recognizable detective stories that introduced features of the genre for everyone who followed.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

Gotta love the tongue-in-cheek title. Anyway, the outstanding feature of Poe's first detective story is his mysterious hero, Auguste Dupin, who is shadowy, eccentric, larger-than-life, brilliant -- and, of course, French. Dupin, from a noble French family, has a good address in Paris, and he discusses intellectual topics like the theater with his journalist sidekick -- the narrator -- with ease. He reads the reviews in "Musee" and he knows the gossip about the ambition and handicaps of a failed actor (like Poe's own father). He consumes the daily newspapers "Gazette Des Tribuneaux" and "Le Monde". He rounds off his little lectures with quotes from French authors. Dupin is a man of culture, familiar with the classics and mathematics. The sidekick narrator is awed by Dupin's huge intellect and serves him a bit dim-wittedly, like Holmes' Watson and Poirot's Hastings.

Dupin investigates by observing details, as Vidocq did. He takes tufts of hair from the rigid fingers of Madame L'Espanaye, unobserved by the cops. Some may argue this is not 'fair play' since later detective fiction said a detective may not remove evidence which is not provided the reader until the end. But hey -- Poe is practically inventing the genre as he goes along; give the man a break.

The hair and finger impressions on the strangled woman convince Dupin (SPOILER ALERT) that an ape did it. He happens to have a volume of Cuvier (a French naturalist) on his shelves to consult about ourang-outangs. The reconstruction of the event is merely confirmed by the sailor who responds to a newspaper ad (EVERYONE read newspapers in those days).

The prefect's jealousy, and Dupin's low opinion of gendarmes, reflects the rivalry between Vidocq and the French police. At the time of the story's publication, the police had taken Vidocq to court, saying his work jeopardized real police work. The court ruled in Vidocq's favor, greatly enhancing his reputation.

Poe's principles became important for the genre. He wrote separate, self-contained stories around the same detective, that is, a series, with an admiring and dim-witted narrator-companion, and a rival cop. The story is conceived backwards: Poe thought of the ape and murder before the clues. They seem obvious to us now: orange hair, non-human fingermarks, brute strength, a sailor ribbon, a broken window nail. But he arranges it is a way to heighten our impression of Dupin's genius. Like most detective stories, it does not proceed as Aristotle said - beginning, middle, end. It proceeds from the middle -- finding the bodies -- to the end (the ape did it), to the beginning. And all in one sitting. Poe, practically the inventor of the short story as a literary form, noted this was important, to create a unified, singe 'effect', in his famous essay on short story writing called 'The Laws of Composition."

In Part 2, I'll offer a few reflections on Poe's other tales of detection (or, as he called it, 'ratiocination'), "The Purloined Letter," "The Gold Bug," and "The Mystery of Marie Roget."