The Murders in the Rue Morgue

First published in an 1841 edition of Graham's Magazine, The Murders in the Rue Morgue is often cited as the first modern detective story. The first of three stories to center around C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's fictional detective, The Murders in the Rue Morgue involves Dupin's investigation of two women's murders. Establishing many of the tropes that would later become common to detective fiction, the story begins with an explanation of Dupin's theory of ratiocination, a concept which greatly influenced the creation of detective fiction itself and other great detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.