Conduct Your Own Poe Investigation

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Edgar Allan Poe was well known for the macabre vision of his short stories and poems. Though gothic literature, such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), was commonplace in his day, Poe was an innovator. He is considered the father of the detective or mystery genre for his short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Its protagonist, the Parisian investigator Auguste Dupin, studies the mind of a gruesome killer to deduce what he will do next. Some of Poe's tales even explored the literary ground we now call science fiction. As well as being an author, Poe was a well-known and respected magazine editor, though he often had to step on the toes of people whose writing did not meet his …