Editing Edgar Allan Poe (section)

== Literary Achievement ==

Poe's Philadelphia years produced fiction that defined his reputation and influenced literature's subsequent development. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), often credited as the first detective story, introduced the ratiocinative tale that Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes would later elaborate. "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) and "The Black Cat" (1843) explored psychological horror with precision that predecessors had not achieved. "The Gold-Bug" (1843) combined adventure with cryptography in ways that demonstrated his range beyond terror alone.<ref name="kennedy"/>

His literary criticism, published in Philadelphia magazines and collected later, established standards that American letters had previously lacked. His insistence on unity of effect, his attacks on mediocrity in American writing, and his analytical approach to literature created criticism as sophisticated as his fiction. The enemies these attacks created—and he did not spare powerful figures—contributed to the difficulties that would follow his Philadelphia success. His "Marginalia" columns demonstrated breadth of reading and thought that his fiction's narrow focus might obscure.<ref name="silverman"/>

His personal circumstances, despite professional success, remained precarious. Virginia's diagnosis with tuberculosis in 1842 began the decline that would end in her death in 1847. His own health, affected by alcohol and possibly other substances, periodically interrupted his work. The combination of professional achievement and personal suffering that characterized his Philadelphia years established the pattern that his remaining life would follow.<ref name="kennedy"/>