Fictional detectives Fictional detectives Fictional detectives are characters in detective fiction. These characters have long been a staple of detective mystery crime fiction, particularly in detective novels and short stories. Much of early detective fiction was written during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" (1920s-1930s). These detectives include amateurs, private investigators and professional policemen. They are often popularized as individual characters rather than parts of the fictional work in which they appear. Stories involving individual detectives are well-suited to dramatic presentation, resulting in many popular theatre, television, and movie characters. The first famous detective in fiction was Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste
C. Auguste Dupin deduces what his friend is thinking despite their having walked together in silence for a quarter of an hour, Holmes remarks: "That trick of his breaking in on his friend's thoughts with an apropos remark... is really very showy and superficial"; nevertheless, Holmes later performs the same 'trick' on Watson in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box". Dupin next appears in a series of seven short stories in "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" by Michael Harrison in the 1960s. The stories were collected by the Publishers Mycroft & Moran in 1968 as "The Exploits of Chevalier Dupin". The stories include "The