C. Auguste Dupin implies "duping" or deception, a skill Dupin shows off in "The Purloined Letter." Detective fiction, however, had no real precedent and the word "detective" had not yet been coined when Poe first introduced Dupin. The closest example in fiction is Voltaire's "Zadig" (1748), in which the main character performs similar feats of analysis, themselves borrowed from "The Three Princes of Serendip", an Italian rendition of Amir Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht. In writing the series of Dupin tales, Poe capitalized on contemporary popular interest. His use of an orangutan in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was inspired by the popular reaction
Jacques Dupin Jacques Dupin Jacques Dupin (4 March 1927, Privas, Ardèche – 27 October 2012, Paris) was a French poet, art critic, and co-founder of the journal "L'éphemère". Dupin was born in the town of Privas in the South of France, where his father was a psychiatrist at a state mental hospital. In 1944, the family moved to Paris, where, in 1950, the poet René Char helped him publish his first collection of poems. In 1966, he co-founded the poetry quarterly L’Éphémère, with poets including André du Bouchet, Yves Bonnefoy and Paul Celan. He was the director of publication at Galerie Maeght,