Editing Detective fiction (section)

===Early Western===
[[File:Edgar Allen Poe 1898.jpg|thumb|[[Edgar Allan Poe]] (1809–1849)]]

One of the earliest examples of detective fiction in Western literature is [[Voltaire]]'s ''[[Zadig]]'' (1748), which features a main character who performs feats of analysis.<ref name=Silverman171/> ''[[Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams]]'' (1794) by [[William Godwin]] portrays the law as protecting the murderer and destroying the innocent.<ref>{{cite journal|first =Gay|last =Clifford|date =1977|title =''1Caleb Williams'' and ''Frankenstein'': First-Person Narratives and "Things as They Are"|journal =Genre|number =10|pages =601–617|url =http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/clifford.html|access-date =2013-12-10|archive-date =2014-11-03|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20141103113438/http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/clifford.html|url-status =live}}</ref> [[Thomas Skinner Surr|Thomas Skinner Sturr]]'s anonymous ''Richmond, or stories in the life of a Bow Street officer'' was published in London in 1827; the Danish crime story ''[[The Rector of Veilbye]]'' by [[Steen Steensen Blicher]] was written in 1829; and the Norwegian crime novel ''Mordet paa Maskinbygger Roolfsen'' ("The Murder of Engine Maker Roolfsen") by [[Maurits Hansen]] was published in December 1839.

"[[Mademoiselle de Scuderi|Das Fräulein von Scuderi]]" is an 1819 short story by [[E. T. A. Hoffmann]], in which Mlle de Scudery establishes the innocence of the police's favorite suspect in the murder of a jeweller. This story is sometimes cited as the first detective story and as a direct influence on [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "[[The Murders in the Rue Morgue]]" (1841).<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Seven Basic Plots|last=Booker|first=Christopher|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|year=2004|isbn=978-0826480378|page=[https://archive.org/details/sevenbasicplotsw0000book/page/507 507]|url=https://archive.org/details/sevenbasicplotsw0000book/page/507}}</ref> Also suggested as a possible influence on Poe is 'The Secret Cell', a short story published in September 1837 by [[William Evans Burton]]. It has been suggested that this story may have been known to Poe, who worked for Burton in 1839.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories|last=Sims|first=Michael|publisher=Walker Books|year=2011|isbn=978-0802779182|pages=2–3}}</ref> The story was about a London policeman who solves the mystery of a kidnapped girl. Burton's fictional detective relied on practical methods such as dogged legwork, knowledge of the underworld and undercover surveillance, rather than brilliance of imagination or intellect.