At 02:02 PM 4/20/2006 -0400, you wrote:
>Do you know of an alternative? Looking around the
net, I can't find
>any sites that say Dupin isn't the first fictional
detective, merely
>sites that corroborate the claim. It would be nice to
know who the
>first really is.
>
>On 4/20/06, Jess Nevins <
jjnevins@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > Nor was he the first fictional detective, and
"Rue Morgue" wasn't
> > the first detective story. But never
mind.
If anyone knows of further early stories, I'd be glad to hear
about them.
Here are the two earliest *American* mystery stories I
have:
William Leggett, "The Rifle," published first anonymously in
_The American Souvenir; Christmas and New Year's Offering.
1827_. Re-published under his name under the same title in
_Tales and Sketches By A Country Schoolmaster_, 1829.
"The Rifle" has a deputy sheriff that might be considered a
detective and is a very early example of the inverted
tale.
"The Murderess" in "The Diary of a Philadelphia Lawyer,"
published by
_Gentleman's Magazine_ (American version -- the one Poe was
to edit in the early 1840s), 1837.
"The Murderess" is interesting because it is the first
"chapter" in a group of seven that would be published in
_Gentleman's Magazine_ that year under the name "The Diary of
a Philadelphia Lawyer". The first chapter is the "whodunnit"
chapter and the rest go through the trial and denouement
which is rather noirish.
Bill Harker
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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