412F Fall 2026 Pondering Poe’s Fingerprints:From Murders in Rue Morgue to the Modern Detective Novel

Before Sherlock Holmes, there was C. Auguste Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe’s brilliant blueprint for the modern detective. This course examines the origins of modern detective fiction through a close study of two of Edgar Allan Poe’s short detective stories, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter, featuring his pioneering detective, Dupin. With the creation of Dupin, Poe establishes a set of conventions that have shaped detective fiction ever since. Students will explore foundational motifs such as the locked room mystery, the crucial clue hidden in plain sight, rigorous logical deduction, the use of red herrings, and the recurring figure of the incompetent police. By analyzing Poe’s formal innovations and narrative strategies, we’ll discuss how these elements became central to later detective and mystery writing. We’ll complete our study by examining modern-day examples of Poe’s techniques in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10.

Marilyn Harriman is a retired Fairfax County Advanced Placement language and composition instructor. She also taught HS and college English and journalism in Oregon, Texas, and Germany. She holds an MEd from the University of Virginia and BA degrees in English and Journalism from the University of Oregon.