"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe: In 1841, a 32-year-old Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," creating what is considered the world's first detective story. Some 50 years later, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would follow with Sherlock Holmes, carrying the mystery to new heights of popularity and stealing all the glory. But make no mistake; Holmes would not exist without the groundbreaking work of Mr. Poe and his magnificent detective, C. Auguste Dupin.

The story opens with an unnamed narrator discussing the nature of the analytical mind. Mental acumen had become of great curiosity to him since befriending one Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, a young Frenchman from an illustrious family who had been reduced to poverty through a series of untoward events. Dupin's spirit diminished with his fortune, leaving him a touch antisocial and completely uninterested in retrieving his lost wealth. His only solace came in books. The narrator meets Dupin at an obscure library, where both men are seeking the same rare volume. A bond is formed through their affinity for literature, and the two men eventually decide to share living quarters, settling in a rundown, dilapidated mansion in a desolate region of Paris.

Dupin soon begins to amaze with his powers of perception, even going so far as to read the narrator's mind by means of acute observation and deduction. Not long after, a newspaper account of two horrific murders provides Dupin with a perfect outlet for his analytical skills.

The details of the crime would tax even the most intelligent investigator. The victims are Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L'Espanaye. The two women are found slain in their home after passers-by were alarmed by terrified screams emanating from the fourth floor of the residence. Neighbors, having forced their way into the building, could hear two voices arguing. However, all was silent by the time the parties reached the fourth floor and broke open the door to a locked back room. The would-be rescuers met with a grisly scene.

The apartment was strewn with broken and upturned furniture. The drawers of the bureau were rifled. A small iron safe, found under a displaced mattress, was open and contained nothing but some old letters and papers of little importance, although there were several valuable pieces of jewelry, not to mention thousands of francs in gold, tossed around the floor. A bloody razor was lying on a chair, and long tresses of gray hair, torn out by the root, were decorating the hearth. The daughter's body, head downward, was discovered stuffed up the chimney, her throat showing evidence of choking. Madame L'Espanaye rested outside on the paved yard at the rear of the building, her head and body grotesquely mutilated. Yikes. Now that, my friends, is a crime scene.

Surprisingly, Dupin makes short work of the mystery, utilizing the few clues and witness testimony to finger an unlikely culprit. A newspaper ad is placed to draw forth the guilty party. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle employs the very same newspaper device in "A Study in Scarlet" and several other Sherlock Holmes stories, including "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" and "The Adventure of Black Peter."

As you've probably already noticed, Mr. Doyle borrowed plenty from Mr. Poe. The extent of Mr. Doyle's appropriation is actually quite sickening. No matter how one slices it, Mr. Doyle's decision to use Dr. Watson, an everyman surrogate for the reader, to narrate his stories, combined with Watson and Holmes sharing living quarters and Holmes' Dupin-like qualities of observation and deduction, makes him as criminal as the villain who butchered Madame L'Espanaye and her poor daughter.

So outraged was I by Mr. Doyle's thievery, I briefly considered a boycott of all things Sherlockian. However, a few belts of the blue ruin calmed my temper, allowing me to see things with a more generous eye. The truth is Mr. Poe only wrote three Dupin mysteries and, as mentioned earlier, he did so a full 50 years before Mr. Doyle penned "A Study in Scarlet." Perhaps Mr. Doyle recognized the genius of Dupin and felt the world needed more of a great thing, so he made a few minor alterations and claimed the genre for his own with Sherlock Holmes. My anger was lessened even more upon reading that Mr. Doyle openly stated Dupin's superiority to Holmes. Then again, there's still the following backhanded swipe Holmes takes at Dupin in "A Study in Scarlet":

"Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt, but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine."

Disparaging, to be sure, but I'm going to chalk it up to professional jealousy amongst detectives. Such a remark only furthers Holmes' character, demonstrating his massive ego. Watson, always the affable fellow, freely admits his admiration for Dupin. And in case you're wondering, Holmes will later mimic Dupin's mind reading routine in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box."

So, in the end, there's no need to hate Holmes in order to praise Dupin. And praising Dupin is what should be done by every man, woman, and child. C. Auguste Dupin is the man.

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"The Mystery of Marie Roget" by Edgar Allan Poe: While "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" set the standard for detective stories, Mr. Poe continued his pioneering work with its sequel, using "The Mystery of Marie Roget" to introduce the "true crime" genre.

On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, savagely beaten and bruised, was fished from the Hudson River. Ms. Rogers, a 20-year-old cigar store employee known by many for her beauty, had been missing for three days. The despicable crime captured the imagination of New Yorkers, providing ample gist for the burgeoning tabloid press. At first, Ms. Rogers' murder was attributed to a roving gang of ruffians. When in doubt, blame ruffians. Others sought to indict the girl's fiancé. Despite numerous theories, the slaying of Mary Rogers remains a mystery to this day.

Mr. Poe took particular interest in the case, seeing another opportunity for C. Auguste Dupin to show his sleuthing supremacy. The setting was shifted from New York to Paris, and the victim's name became Mary Roget. Everything else, from the timetable of events to the smallest clue, was otherwise identical to the actual crime.

The same unnamed narrator from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" tells the tale, relating how Dupin systematically pokes holes in all the proposed theories of the day. Working only from various newspaper accounts of the facts, Dupin puts his awesome analytical mind to work, building his own explanation of how the lovely lass met her gruesome fate.

This truly is an extraordinary story. It's one thing to base a work on a past crime, or even to offer a solution to a mystery long claimed by time, but Mr. Poe wrote this in the middle of the criminal investigation as the entire city was swept up in the Mary Rogers hysteria. Whether or not Dupin's eventual conclusion is correct is open to debate. What can't be argued, however, is the courage of the author who attempts such an exercise of his talents.

(More information about the Mary Rogers murder can be found at www.crimelibrary.com.)

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"The Purloined Letter" by Edgar Allan Poe: This, the third and final Dupin mystery, is the greatest of all. Everything that makes C. Auguste Dupin so memorable, from his eccentric lifestyle to his ingenious intellect, is on display, with Mr. Poe further establishing the blueprint for future mystery writers.

The Prefect of Parisian police pays a visit to Dupin and the unnamed narrator, asking for assistance in a particularly delicate affair. It seems an unscrupulous government official has stolen a personal letter from a member of the royal family. The thief perpetrated the act in front of the victim, taking advantage of fortuitous timing to snatch the correspondence, knowing full well the woman wouldn't protest in front of her husband, since the nature of the letter would certainly disrupt matrimonial harmony. The devious official wastes little time in exploiting the purloined paper, using the threat of its employment to gain political power.

Desperate for help, the wronged woman turns to the Prefect of police. Yet, despite knowing the identity of the thief, the Prefect and his men are hindered by the delicacy of the situation. They can't allow the man to know their intentions or else all would be lost. The Prefect has the official mugged, as if by robbers, but the letter is not in his possession. The guilty party's rooms are broken into and searched, on an almost nightly basis, but still no sign of the letter. Can Dupin prevail where the others failed?

The structure of the story – person arriving in need of assistance, the relating of the facts, the detective doing the seemingly impossible with great ease, closing with an explanation of his unique methods – set the standard for the Sherlock Holmes mysteries that would follow many years later. In fact, the plot of "The Purloined Letter" can be seen in two of the better Holmes stories, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" and "The Adventure of the Second Stain."

Dupin is in fine form throughout, expounding philosophically on the means of investigation. He also exhibits his uncanny ability to put himself in the mind of the criminal. If there is a difference between Dupin and Holmes, it would be in Dupin's use of intuition as well as cold hard facts.

The main reason why Dupin stands out above Holmes, or any other detective for that matter, is simply the strength of his creator. Mr. Poe's ability far exceeds the realm of mere mysteries. His prose carries a natural, undeniable weight. Even when constructing something as "trivial" as a detective story, Mr. Poe's remarkable talent, meant to immortalize beauty and challenge death, dominates the work, giving it a lyrical life.

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