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The First Detective: Three Stories
Edgar Allan Poe invented and perfected the model for modern detective fiction, including Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and many others. The formula: an extremely intelligent amateur sleuth out-thinks the official police, with a story often narrated by his not-so-bright companion. In Poe's case, he set the scene in Paris, with French characters. His three stories — The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter were set as a series, each succeeding one referring to the previous. But, despite the immediate popularity of the genre, Poe moved on to other fiction and poetry experiments.
The three stories together elaborate on the psychological analysis that Poe saw as relevant to human life. If everybody believes something, he concluded, it must be wrong.
He goes into a trait that distinguishes humans from all other animals -- the ability to see into the minds of others, anticipating their motives and actions.
The introduction by Sasha Newborn is peppered with comments from critics and psychologists alike as to the meaning of Poe's contribution. This unique genre has lasted over a hundred and fifty years and occupies a large section in most bookstores; the appetite for such fascinating stories seems to be unending.
The three stories together elaborate on the psychological analysis that Poe saw as relevant to human life. If everybody believes something, he concluded, it must be wrong.
He goes into a trait that distinguishes humans from all other animals -- the ability to see into the minds of others, anticipating their motives and actions.
The introduction by Sasha Newborn is peppered with comments from critics and psychologists alike as to the meaning of Poe's contribution. This unique genre has lasted over a hundred and fifty years and occupies a large section in most bookstores; the appetite for such fascinating stories seems to be unending.
Paperback
Published February 27, 2013
17 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,829 books28.7k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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September 25, 2022Hard to give this a rating, so I won't. I was more reading it to see the origins of the iconic detective story and brilliant crime solver. Conan Doyle and others were influenced so much by Poe's Dupin stories. If you love Sherlock, Poirot, or another modern detective, give this a read to see how far back that trope goes.
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