C. Auguste Dupin is a fictional detective created by Edgar Allan Poe who appeared in three short stories between 1841 and 1844. He is an impoverished young nobleman living in Paris, fond of night walks and long hours of reading by candlelight. When a baffling crime catches his attention, Dupin applies what Poe called “ratiocination” – strict logical analysis combined with creative imagination – to arrive at the truth while the Parisian police remain stuck.
Dupin is not a professional investigator. He solves crimes as an intellectual exercise, motivated by curiosity rather than duty or payment. His cases are narrated by an unnamed friend and roommate, a structure Poe invented and Arthur Conan Doyle later borrowed for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Doyle openly credited Dupin as the model for Holmes, and the lineage is hard to miss: the brilliant amateur, the baffled narrator, the incompetent police, the dramatic reveal. Nearly every fictional detective since owes something to these three stories.
Reading Order
See the complete C. Auguste Dupin reading order for all books in the series.