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 bu...