The Paper Trail Begins
A Quest for the Original Sleuths
June 11, 2017
I have long been a captive of the "whodunit." From the printed page to the digital screen, I find myself not just consuming mysteries, but attempting to inhabit them—mentally replicating the meticulous methods of Hercule Poirot or the sharp, unassuming intuition of Miss Marple in my daily life.
The spark for this specific project was ignited during a Mystery Fiction course at UC Berkeley Extension. It was there that I learned the fictional detective was born in 1841, as in Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. However, that literary milestone left me with a more pressing curiosity: Who were the human predecessors? Before there was Dupin or Holmes, who were the flesh-and-blood pioneers of detection?
Who were the real people who inspired the world of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot? Join me as I bridge the gap between Berkeley classroom theory and the grit of historical detection.
Did these early investigators study literary techniques, or did literature follow their lead? Were they celebrated as heroes of the law, or did they have to fight for the right to be heard?
Admittedly, I start this journey with a generalization: I assume the first detective was a man. Before you challenge my assumption, consider the global landscape. Even now, in 2016, America has yet to see a woman in the presidency. And while Indira Gandhi governed India for years, as a woman who lived there for three decades, I know that the reality of gender equality remains a distant goal.
If the first detective was a man, I want to know his coordinates. Where was he based? What was the nature of his first case, and did he possess that classic, cinematic "heart of gold"? Conversely, I am searching for the first woman to break into this shadow world. How did she navigate the "you-are-a-woman-so-raise-a-family" attitudes of her peers? What was the first agency to open its doors to the public?
This blog is the repository of my quest to answer these questions. As an immigrant from India now living in the United States, I am focusing my research on the "First Detectives" of these two nations. I invite you to join me in this investigation.
I am crossing my fingers as I begin to explore the world of detectives.
— Sheena