The honour of founding the modern detective story belongs to an American writer. Such tales as
The Purloined Letter and The Murders in the Rue Morgue still stand unrivalled. We in America no
more than the world of letters at large did not readily realize what Poe had done when he
created Auguste Dupin the prototype of Sherlock Holmes et genus omnes up to the present hour.
On Poe's work is built the whole school of French detective story writers. Conan Doyle derived
his inspiration from them in turn and our American writers of to-day are helped from both
French and English sources. It is rare enough to find the detective in fiction even to-day
however who is not lacking in one supreme quality scientific imagination. Auguste Dupin had
it. Dickens had he lived a short time longer might have turned his genius in this direction.
The last thing he wrote was the Mystery of Edwin Drood the mystery of which is still
unravelled. I have heard the opinion expressed by an eminent living writer that had Dickens'
life been prolonged he would probably have become the greatest master of the detective story
except Poe. [...] The second part of the Masterpieces series containing a collection of
detective stories. Includes narratives from Edgar Allan Poe Arthur Conan Doyle and others.
