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 of the Red Death setting combines real-world history with legends and literature. Thus, necromancers practice dark arts among the slave traders of New Orleans, while Buenos Aires agricultural barons attempt to squelch rumors of monstrous winged serpents. Spirit creatures stalk the settlers of the American West. Sherlock Holmes shares a railroad car with Count Dracula. Unlike the basic Ravenloft setting, where mysterious mists divide the realm into distinct settings, the Gothic Earth setting has no divisions. "Masque" begins by replacing the traditional character classes with soldiers (like fighters, but can’t specialize in favored weapons), adepts (wizards with limited magic and