The Father of the Detective Story

All of the CSI series popular on television today evolved from earlier writers, many of whom struggled throughout their lives only to later be declared literary geniuses. One in particular is visited and revisited throughout literature studies being considered a serious writer in the eyes of the literary elite throughout Europe and the world. We know him as the master of short horror and scary stories, such as "The Black Cat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart", which are only a few among numerous others plus his poetic works of which "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven" are at the top of the list in the literature curriculum of most schools.

This same American writer, editor and literary critic is also known as The Father of the Detective Story. His name is Edgar Allen Poe.

Poe had a profound impact on American, as well as international, literature. In fact, as a writer of fiction, he became one of the first 19th century American authors to become more popular in Europe than the United States. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, said of Poe, "Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed.... Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?" [Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives were based on the characters that Poe created.]

Edgar Allan Poe was the undisputed "Father" of the Detective Story. He created so much that is of importance in the field -- literally creating the template for all of detective fiction to follow. (Years later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was to say that Poe "was a model for all time.") Read MORE...

From short story...

Poe's short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. Thus the beginning of what has been recognized as the first modern detective story.

To film...

Murders in the Rue Morgue Re-Release Trailer (1932)

Trailer for 1971 AIP adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue", starring Jason Robards, Herbert Lom, Christine Kaufmann, Adolfo Celi, Maria Perschy, Michael Dunn, and Lilli Palmer. Directed by Gordon Hessler (Scream and Scream Again, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Cry of the Banshee, The Oblong Box).

Edgar Allen Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849)