C. Auguste Dupin

Edgar Allan Poe created a famous fictional detective named C. Auguste Dupin which was first introduced to the people through a story named “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. This fictional story was created by Edgar Allan Poe in the year 1841 and then the character C. Auguste Dupin was again featured in the story “The Purloined Letter”.

Although, C. Auguste Dupin is not a detective by profession, but while solving the mysteries, he always tries to put himself in the criminal’s mind so that he can hit on every clue that links to the mystery and helps in solving the case.


When Edgar Allan Poe created this fictional character of C. Auguste Dupin, the term “DETECTIVE” was not coined. This is the reason that all the stories written by Edgar clearly mention that C. Auguste Dupin is not a professional detective.

The character of C. Auguste Dupin gave rise to many other characters which were professional detectives and this made the fictional detective stories very interesting.

C. Auguste Dupin belongs to a quite wealthy family, but with the troublesome twist and turns in life, the family faces very unpleasant situations which leave them in a situation to fulfill basic necessities only.

The narrator of the story is unidentified, but C. Auguste Dupin stays with the narrator in Paris. Dupin is very fond of enigmas and the first series of this fictional detective start with an investigational case in Paris where a mother and a daughter were murdered.

The second story where C. Auguste Dupin was featured was “The Mystery of Marie Roget” and this story was based on a factual account. A lady named Mary Roger was a saleswoman in Manhattan’s cigar shop and was murdered for some reasons.

Her body was found floating in the river Hudson and on this true event, Edgar wrote this story, “The Mystery of Marie Roget”. The third story “The Purloined Letter” was about a stolen letter that was filched from the French Queen.

Investigating Technique

C. Auguste Dupin is a very intelligent character who solves the cases cleverly. One technique that Dupin always reflects upon is keeping himself in the mind of the criminal and then thinking as per his perspective.

This technique helps the character Dupin to solve all the cases and get to the root of evidences. His creative imagination to find the evidences have made him very popular among the readers and this effective technique makes him capable of solving all the cases.

Most of the clues that he finds as links to the cases are actually found from the newspapers and other reports, which emphasizes reading and writing aspects.

In addition to this, the method of finding the evidences differs in all the stories, but the basic of keeping himself in the criminal’s mind remains the same.

In one of the stories, C. Auguste Dupin solves the case purposefully, so as to prove innocence of a man who was charged for what he had not done and so Dupin does not accepts the financial reward.

This is what makes the fictional detective so admired by the people.