For more than a century, there have indeed been attempts to identify the "real" Dupin who inspired Poe's mystery tales. Auguste Duponte and the Baron Dupin are fictional but take their forms from the wide range of "Dupin" candidates who have been uncovered. This long list includes a French tutor named C. Auguste Dubouchet and a preeminent lawyer, André-Marie-Jean-Jacques Dupin.

Though many people have obsessively combed through the death of Poe in attempts to solve its mysteries, Quentin's quest is fictional. Still, his actions and some specific discoveries channel the earliest amateur investigators, who preceded by decades the scholars and theorists who later took up the subject. Maria Clemm, Neilson Poe, and Mr. Benson were quietly endeavoring to collect information immediately after Poe's death, when traces of his final days might still turn up anywhere.

Acknowledgments

This book owes so much to four people: first, to my literary agent and friend, Suzanne Gluck, brilliant and inspirational at every step; and to Gina Centrello of Random House and my editors, Jon Karp and Jennifer Hershey, for their vision, their passion, and their faith.

Superb publishing professionals at my literary agency and publishing houses contributed to all facets of the process. At William Morris Agency, Jon Baker, Georgia Cool, Raffaella De Angelis, Alice Ellerby, Michelle Feehan, Tracy Fisher, Candace Finn, Eugenie Furniss, Alicia Gordon, Yael Katz, Shana Kelly, Rowan Lawton, Erin Malone, Andy McNicol, Emily Nurkin, and Bari Zibrack. At Random House, Avideh Bashirrad, Kate Blum, Sanyu Dillon, Benjamin Dreyer, Richard Elman, Megan Fishmann, Laura Ford, Jonathan Jao, Jennifer Jones, Vincent La Scala, Libby McGuire, Gene Mydlowski, Grant Neumann, Jack Perry, Tom Perry, Jillian Quint, Carol Schneider, Judy Sternlight (at Modern Library), Beck Stvan, Simon Sullivan, Bonnie Thompson, and Jane von Mehren. I have also received support and insight from Chris Lynch at Simon amp; Schuster Audio, Stuart Williams and Jason Arthur at Harvill Secker UK, Elena Ramirez at Seix Barral, and Francesca Cristoffanini at Rizzoli.

Thanks to those who have helped this book progress through reading and reinforcing. This includes, as always, my family; my parents, Susan and Warren Pearl, and my brother, Ian Pearl; as well as Benjamin Cavell, Joseph Gangemi, Julia Green, Anna Guillemin, Gene Koo, Julie Park, Cynthia Posillico, Gustavo Turner, and Scott Weinger; and Tobey Wiggins, who lent amazing encouragement and supportiveness.

Additional thanks: the archivists and librarians at Boston Public Library, Harvard University, Iowa University, Duke University, Maryland Historical Society, Enoch Pratt Public Library of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, New York Public Library, the Library of Virginia and the University of Virginia. Also, for generous input related to Poe and specific areas of nineteenth-century life and culture: Ralph Clayton, Dr. John Emsley, Allan Holtzman, Jeffrey Meyers, Scott Peeples, Edward Papenfuse, Jeff Savoye, Kenneth Silverman, and Dr. Katherine Watson.

Further appreciation to the generations of scholars who have assembled our current knowledge about Poe's life, including the exceptional Burton Pollin (who first noticed the appearance, mentioned in this novel, of the initials "E. S. T. G." in the Broadway Journal). A note of praise for the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore website (eapoe.org), created by Jeff Savoye, which should set the standard for all online literary resources. Finally, thanks to the staffs and supporters of the Poe homes and museums in Baltimore, Fordham, Philadelphia, and Richmond, as well as the Westminster burial yard in Baltimore, for sustaining the story of Poe as a living experience and allowing all of us a chance to visit.

About The Author

MATTHEW PEARL is the author of The Dante Club, a New York Times and international bestseller, and the editor of the Modern Library editions of Dante's Inferno (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales. The Dante Club has been published in more than thirty languages and forty countries around the world. Pearl is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and has taught literature at Harvard and at Emerson College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He can be reached via his website, www.matthewpearl.com.