C. Auguste Dupin

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C. Auguste Dupin is a fictional detective created by Edgar Allan Poe.

While not the first detective in fiction, C. Auguste Dupin was the prototype for many that came later (most notably Sherlock Holmes). He lives in Paris alone in an old house. He bears the title Chevalier, meaning that he is a knight in the Légion d'honneur.

Many tropes that would later become commonplace in mystery fiction first appeared in Poe's stories: the eccentric but brilliant detective, the bumbling constabulary, the first-person narration by a close personal friend. Like Sherlock Holmes, Dupin uses his considerable deductive prowess and observation to solve crimes.

He appears in three stories by Poe:

In the first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, Doctor Watson compares Holmes to Dupin, to which Doyle would have Holmes reply: "No doubt you think you are complimenting me ... In my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow", despite the fact that his detective was evidently inspired by the other.

[edit] Other writers

Dupin next appears in a series of seven short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine by Michael Harrison in the 1960's. The stories were collected by the Publishers Mycroft & Moran in 1968. Included in the collection is an essay by Harrison discussing the real-life inspiration for Poe's Dupin.

The stories are:

"The Vanished Treasure" (May 1965)
"The Mystery of the Fulton Documents" (September 1965)
"The Man in the Blue spectacles" (May 1966)
"The Mystery of the Gilded Cheval-Glass" (January 1967)
"The Fires in the Rue St. Honoré" (January 1967)
"The Facts in the Case of the Missing Diplomat" (April 1968)

French writer Gerard Dole has also written a series of Dupin short stories, some of which have been translated into English by Anita Conrade.

Novelist George Egon Hatvary uses Dupin in his novel The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe (1997) as both detective and narrator. In the novel Dupin travels to America to investigate the circumstances of Poe's mysterious death in 1849. In the novel, Dupin and Poe became friends when Poe stayed in Paris circa 1829, and it was Poe who assisted Dupin in the three cases Poe wrote about. Hatvary writes that Dupin bears an exceptional resemblance to Poe, so much so that several people confuse the two on first sight.

Dupin makes a guest appearance in the first two issues of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic book, helping to track down and subdue the monstrous Mr Hyde (who is living secretly in Paris after faking the death described in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde).da:C. August Dupin es:Auguste Dupin ko:오거스트 뒤팽 it:Auguste Dupin nl:C. Auguste Dupin ja:オーギュスト・デュパン sl:Auguste Dupin sv:C. Auguste Dupin