The Moonstone the best of modern English detective novels in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe," and Dorothy L. Sayers praised it as "probably the very finest detective story ever written." In "The Victorian Age in Literature," G. K. Chesterton calls it "probably the best detective tale in the world." It was published in 1868, later than Poe's short story mysteries "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) (which introduced the famous locked-room paradigm), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842), and "The Purloined Letter" (1845). The plot also shows some parallels with "The Hermitage" (1839), an earlier murder mystery
The Murders in the Rue Morgue The two share rooms in a dilapidated old mansion and allow no visitors, having cut off all contact with past acquaintances and venturing outside only at night. "We existed within ourselves alone," the narrator states. One evening, Dupin demonstrates his analytical prowess by deducing the narrator's thoughts about a particular stage actor, based on clues gathered from the narrator's previous words and actions. During the remainder of that evening and the following morning, Dupin and the narrator read with great interest the newspaper accounts of a baffling double murder. Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter have been found dead at their