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
Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales setting's fine, but it's a sidebar to the system overhaul. "Masque of the Red Death" makes a persuasive case for reality-based role-playing, where wits count more than muscle and a shotgun packs more punch than a fireball. Endearingly human, these are the only "AD&D" game characters I'd consider using as investigators in a "Call of Cthulhu" game or, for that matter, as adversaries in a "Vampire" campaign. And nitpickers who've been clamoring for a streamlined, skill-based "AD&D" game ought to be dancing in the streets. "Masque of the Red Death" doesn't qualify as the Third Edition of the "AD&D" game,