Sherlock Holmes such that many have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual; numerous literary and fan societies have been founded that pretend to operate on this principle. Widely considered a British cultural icon, the character and stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture as a whole, with the original tales as well as thousands written by authors other than Conan Doyle being adapted into stage and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over one hundred years. Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin is generally acknowledged
Jack Spratt (fictional detective) Inspector with the Reading, Berkshire "Nursery Crimes Division", with his assistant Sergeant Mary Mary (another nursery rhyme character). Spratt and Mary were originally introduced into the alternate Fforde universe in the Thursday Next novel "The Well of Lost Plots" (2003) before taking over their own "Nursery Crimes" series: Jack Spratt (fictional detective) Jack Spratt is the protagonist in a series of alternate history science fiction fantasy novels by Jasper Fforde. He was named after the character from the English nursery rhyme. As revealed in "The Big Over Easy", for example, he hates eating fat, and was once married to a