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http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/poedc/
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By Alice Cresswell

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To be defined as such, a genre must contain set devices, making them inclusive or exclusive to texts. As such, gothic literature includes many motifs, themes and devices which make them easily identifiable as part of the gothic genre, some of which will be discussed here, including, imprisonment, heightened emotions, the doppelgänger, the supernatural, death,...

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Written by the University of Texas, Arlington, this source includes notable authors of Gothic Literature and examples of their works.
URL: http://libguides.uta.edu/gothic
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Subject and Course Guides: Gothic Literature: Notable Gothic Authors

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Subject and Course Guides: Gothic Literature: Notable Gothic Authors

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Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination

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Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination

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By The British Library

License: Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

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Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination

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Re-animating a Murderer: The Corpse Experiment that Inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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Re-animating a Murderer: The Corpse Experiment that Inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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A short essay about the inspiration for the monster
By Strange Remains

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George Forster was hanged at Newgate Prison on January 18, 1803 for murdering his wife and daughter. After the execution, Forster's (also spelled Foster in The Newgate Calendar) body was carried to a nearby house so that Giovanni Aldini (April 10, 1762 - January 17, 1834), an Italian physicist and professor at the University of Bologna, could conduct a gruesome experiment that many believe inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Aldini's work was greatly inspired by his uncle Luigi Galvani (September 9, 1737 - December 4, 1798). Galvani's experiments on the nerves and legs of frogs helped him to establish a link between electricity and muscle movement. He used the term 'animal electricity' to describe the electrical force that originated in the brain and flowed through the nerves to set muscles of his specimens in motion. Because of Galvani's pioneering work, the study of the effects of electricity on organisms became known as galvanism. Doctors would go on to treat various medical ailments, like epilepsy and paralysis, with electricity. Today, the study of electricity produced by the body is known as electricophysiology.

From what I can tell, Galvani only tested his hypotheses on animals and never got the opportunity to experiment with a human corpse. But his nephew, Giovanni Aldini, was able to demonstrate the effects of electricity on the human body during a particularly macabre experiment on George Forster's corpse.

Forster was indicted for the murder of his wife and daughter on January 14, 1803. Forster's wife and daughter were last seen alive with him at the Mitre Tavern in London near the Paddington Canal a few weeks previous on December 5th. The bodies of his wife and daughter were pulled from the canal a few days later. A jury eventually found Forster guilty of the crime and sentenced him to death.

On January 18, 1803 Forster was hanged and his corpse was brought to a nearby house where Aldini performed a galvanic demonstration in front of an audience made up of surgeons

Aldini built a device for his experiments that consisted of conducting rods and a battery. He applied the conducting rods to different parts of the body from head to tail. The experiment was described in an 1887 issue of The Newgate Calendar, a monthly publication that contained descriptions of executions at Newgate Prison.

"M. Aldini, who was the nephew of the discoverer of this most interesting science, showed the powers of Galvanism to be far superior to those of any other stimulant. On the first application of the process to the face, the jaw of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process, the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion. Mr. Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons' Company, being officially present during the time of the extraordinary experiments, was so alarmed, that on his going home he died that night."

The work of Galvani and Aldini contributed to the understanding of the relationship between physiology and electrical currents. Many researchers agree that by the time novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote the famous gothic novel Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus in 1816, she would have heard about Aldini's infamous corpse experiment and used it as inspiration for the method that Frankenstein used to animate his monster.

Categories: History

Tags: Halloween, Histmed

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Re-animating a Murderer: The Corpse Experiment that Inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

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George Forster was hanged at Newgate Prison on January 18, 1803 for murdering his wife and daughter. After the execution, Forster's (also spelled Foster in The Newgate Calendar) body was carried to a nearby house so that Giovanni Aldini (April 10, 1762 - January 17, 1834), an Italian physicist and professor at the University of...

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Reasoning through madness: the detective in Gothic crime fiction

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Reasoning through madness: the detective in Gothic crime fiction

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By Michelle Miranda

Only look through the Introduction and Historical Impacts sections

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Introduction

The Gothic era is characterized by the horrific and unknown; death, psychological degeneration, and mystery are the typical elements intertwined in Gothic literature. The concept of Gothic is ever-evolving, with prevailing social anxieties dictating what constitutes the macabre. Characterized by what "shocks the conscience", the Gothic genre is moulded by human nature and fear of the unknown, which exists on a continuum throughout history. Psychological terror, whether in the form of a monster or a madman, reflects on the atmosphere of a given time period, focusing on the public's deepest fears and anxieties and forcing the reader to face those fears through a winding maze of darkness and uncertainty. Early Gothic fiction, centered in the first half of the nineteenth century, was influenced by the Enlightenment; while the scientific and industrial revolutions of the eighteenth century brought forth advanced scientific theories and modes of reasoning, social stratification began to see a blurred division between the civilized and the barbaric. With this division, fears of social regression and degeneration were heightened. What separated the man from the beast was not a chasm, but a line not so well-defined and not so easily avoidable. Authors of early Gothic literature were able to exploit these fears while at the same time praising the advancements in science, technology, psychology and philosophy that awakened these moral panics.1 Commenting on the link between science, crime and class structure in the Gothic era, the detective Eugene François Vidocq wrote,

Justice! It strikes the blow! And to whom does it strike? The poor, the ignorant, the unfortunate, to whom the bread of education has been denied; him in which no moral principle has been inoculated; him to whom the law has not been promulgated ... Let us not be deceived, in spite of the diffusion of light, the education of the people is not yet completed ... Science is abroad, and she walks alone; she advances for the privileged classes; she progresses for the rich. She illuminates only the upper regions, and the lower are still in the darkness ... (1834: 364)

One can reason that the darkness was both literal and figurative; the dark and dirty streets in the recesses of the city filled with the lower classes were where deviant behaviours and sinister criminals festered-here is where Gothic fiction found its focus. The darkness was a symbol of the unknown, where the uneducated and unstable existed, inciting fear and uncertainty in the literate, distanced middle and upper classes. When that darkness made its way into the well-lit regions reserved for the upper classes, elements of horror and dread were bound to diffuse into the psyche of those citizens, causing fear and apprehension.

As the Gothic Era bled into the Victorian era in the second half of the nineteenth century, Victorian Gothic fiction was born. Existing on a continuum, Victorian Gothic continued to explore the fears and anxieties of society, with attention given to the morbid and dark. While the Victorian Gothic era was characterized by epistemological 2 advancement and a romanticism of daily life, the public's fascination with horror and the morbid was still prominent. What evolved during this transition from Gothic to Victorian Gothic was knowledge obtained through developments in science, criminology and the criminal justice system. Superimposed on the rising attention to crime was the amplification of scientific thought. Psychoanalysis and evolution2 were being scrutinized at the same time that criminologists weighed in on atavism and the born criminal. 4 Due to the development of police and detective agencies, the public became more interested in law enforcement, crime solving with the aid of physical evidence, and the nature of the criminal. The pioneering work of individuals like Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924), Hans Gross (1847-1915), Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914), Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), and Edmund Locard (1877-1966) brought about an exploration of crime and science and the utilization of science in solving crimes. Advancements in criminal identification, forensic medicine, forensic toxicology, forensic ballistics, criminal psychology and policing produced a wealth of publications and greatly expanded the accessibility of such topics to the public. A great deal of attention was paid to evolution and human nature, with atavism leading the criminologist's quest for understanding the criminal mind, isolating the born criminal, and predicting future behaviour. Further explorations to understand the human psyche and gain insight into the causes of and cures for madness were also underway. But social stratification and anxiety still existed, and criminals now seemed to permeate every aspect of daily life, from the gentleman con artist to the serial killer of prostitutes.3

Investigators evaluated the nature of crime and the importance of criminal investigations while scientists began to understand the efficacy of tangible evidence on the apprehension and conviction of criminals. The walking dead were not limited to monsters created in a laboratory or vampires located in the confines of a castle in an uncharted country (for example, Frankenstein and Dracula). Instead, the feared became specters-supernatural beings and the ghosts of one's past. These ghosts were not limited to ominous, bone-chilling apparitions in a haunted house, but now were a function of the mind; directly linked to misunderstood bouts of madness and the motivations of the perverse criminal. Fear of the unknown, as well as concepts that appeared to be out of the control of the individual, created an atmosphere of moral panic, delivered through various sources-news reports, scientific treatises and Gothic fiction. Degeneration and the looming possibility of regression to a state of savagery at any given moment, even as objective views of evolutionary theory were gaining a foothold, had the power to produce sociocultural anxieties that were not easily quelled. But perhaps this is why the investigator and resultant detective fiction were successful-the detective-hero goes to great lengths to understand the criminal mind and utilize the clues to apprehend the deviant. Although surrounded by skeptics (including the reader), the detective was able to rationalize the supernatural and objectify the terrifyingly subjective narratives. The end result was hope that law and order would emerge to improve society and attenuate that which was criminal and delinquent.

The greatest impacts on Gothic fiction and detective fiction were those works by Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While Gothic fiction and detective fiction are distinctly different in style and form, Poe and Doyle were instrumental in linking the two, often through the combination of horror and reasoning. Both Poe and Doyle took cues from their own periods in history to isolate existing social anxieties to cause both fear and relief within the same tale of mystery-fear of the unknown clarified by the use of reasoning and logic, sometimes at the hands of the narrator-turned-investigator and other times at the hands of the detective.

Historical impacts

Both the Gothic era (mid 1700's to 1900) and the Victorian era (1837-1901) were overlapping historical periods in which scientific epistemology made great strides. The mid 1800's defined positivism, in which knowledge was obtained through empiricism. 6 Observation of natural phenomena, coupled with reasoning, became the fundamental basis of the scientific method4, allowing for scientific endeavours to be pursued with rigour and analytical support. In addition to the natural sciences, empiricism led the way to the understanding of the human mind. Gradually, subjective, irrational thinking was replaced by rational thought through scientific reasoning. While knowledge and understanding allowed for objective explanations of complex phenomena, newly discovered concepts that were outside the realm of understanding with traditional testing methods led to new fears and anxieties. While literacy exposed the upper classes to these advances in science and sociology, those without access to education remained in a subjective state, holding superstition as a means of evaluating unexplainable phenomena. Social stratification, uncharted questions into the natural sciences and the decrepit status of law and order played into the general citizen's fear of the unknown and created an atmosphere of suspicion and worry, which enabled Gothic literature to flourish. As individuals became educated through exposure to advancements in science, psychology, policing and crime, yet held tightly on to superstition and tradition, writers like Poe and Doyle were able to craft their narratives to cater to the fears and social anxieties of the general public.

In addition to the impact of the scientific revolution, the development and organization of police and law enforcement agencies influenced the literary works of Poe. In general, nineteenth century law enforcement was described as disorganized and plagued with dishonest and corrupt law enforcement agents. 8 In London, the Bow Street Runners (est. 1750) made way for the Metro Police (est. 1829), followed by Scotland Yard (est. 1842). The "reformed" criminal Vidocq led France's Sûreté (est. 1810) in a series of criminal investigations into the mid-nineteenth century. During Vidocq's tenure, the Sûreté was made up of fellow "reformed" convicts intermixed with police officials. In North America, the establishment of law enforcement agencies along the east coast evolved slowly: The Philadelphia Police Department (c. 1833), the Boston Police Department (c. 1838), the New York City Police Department (c. 1845), and the Baltimore Police Department (c. 1845). In Chicago, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, considered the first detective agency in North America, was established in 1850. While Poe's detective, C. Auguste Dupin, was based in Paris, Poe himself spent his time in America travelling along the east coast, between Boston, Virginia, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania. On the basis of the development of law enforcement agencies and detective divisions in North America during his lifetime, it is likely that the changing landscape of law and order was apparent to Poe. The establishment of structured law enforcement agencies in America, as well as those in England and France, likely influenced Poe's series of detective fiction written from 1841 through 1844.

Doyle, a physician, was influenced by the study of medicine and the utilization of "clues" (symptoms) to diagnose patient's ailments.5 In a time when medicine and toxicology were found to have relevance in criminal investigations, Doyle was likely exposed to such developments as a medical student and practitioner. The coroner systems fared no better than that of law enforcement in the nineteenth century, with the system in America described as hopelessly defective, with substantial changes only beginning to take place well after Poe's death and during Doyle's lifetime. "The way coroners determined a cause of death by questioning witnesses frequently amounted to sheer absurdity...Since few pathologists were available [to conduct autopsies], and none of these were versed in forensic medicine, many of the findings were erroneous. Even the most basic laws of investigation were mocked" ( Thorwald, 1965: 201). As such, exploiting the weaknesses in the slowly evolving systems of criminal and forensic investigations as well as those incompetent individuals making up such disjointed investigations was presumably an easy feat for Poe, and one that could be continued by Doyle.

Poe: from tales of horror and ratiocination to detective fiction

Various works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), were influenced to some degree by scientific reasoning and the evolution of law enforcement. Best known for his tales of "horror", and "terror", and the "grotesque", and "arabesque", Poe often incorporated psychological elements of fear and madness into his tales. In his works, Poe was able to superimpose the illusion of logic and fact on the tales of horror and mystery, which allowed for the presentation of prevailing thoughts on science, logic and imagination by philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Scientific thought in Poe's time focused on the quest for epistemological theory and certainty through observation and experimentation. In his stories, especially those featuring Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, Poe was able to demonstrate that when utilizing rational thought and reasoning, it was possible to discover causal links between events. In addition to causality, observation and comparison allowed scientists to identify and discriminate between objects and beings, which eventually became the corner stone of criminal investigations and the forensic sciences. Poe's knowledge of such scientific endeavours enabled him to craft tales that intermingled ideas of horror and rational thought.

In one of his later works, Mellonta Tauta (1839), Poe made direct reference to the debates concerning scientific method and reasoning and what he perceived to be as oversights of the scientific philosophers who had weighed in on scientific reasoning. Dissatisfied with the idea that the sole possible avenues to knowledge were based on the assertions of either Aristotle or Francis Bacon, 10 the fictional author of the letters6 in Mellonta Tauta referred to the repression of imagination, a concept presented by the physicist John Tyndall (1820-1893). It is this concept of imagination that reappears in many of Poe's earlier works and is a concept that Poe attributes to separating the successful detective-investigators from "others" (usually the police). This idea of imagination was based on the ability to, "magnify, diminish, qualify, and combine experiences, so as to render them fit for purposes entirely new" ( Tyndall, 1872: 6). Tyndall asserted that, armed with knowledge and reason, imagination was the "mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer" (ibid.). When applied to studying objects and considering the myriad ways in which such objects could be observed, Tyndall reflected on the potential for scientific conclusions to mislead and the importance of guesswork,

When, for example, the contents of a cell are described as perfectly homogeneous, as absolutely structureless, because the microscope fails to distinguish any structure, then I think the microscope begins to play a mischievous part ... It cannot be too distinctly borne in mind that between the microscopic limit and the true molecular limit there is room for infinite permutations and combinations ... It is not of the power of our instrument, but whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements to which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature. It is plain from this that beyond the present outposts of microscopic enquiry lies an immense field for the exercise of the speculative power (1872: 30).

Using this example of understanding the limitations of one's methodology, Tyndall adds that the human imagination would go beyond the details of the microscopic observations and instead try to understand the history of the cell's origin of existence. Poe believed that the true and only true thinkers are those men with an ardent imagination. Poe's beliefs were substantially moulded by Tyndall, and Tyndall's essay, Scientific Use of the Imagination, aligns with Poe's assertions in his tales of ratiocination. 12

Poe also captures another recurring theme from his earlier stories in Mellonta Tauta, that of philosophers and scientists being blinded by details, often thinking that they see better by holding an object closely to the eyes ( Poe, 1994). In addition to the references to imagination, Poe addresses the matter of logic in Mellonta Tauta, and refers to the work of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Mill asserted that logic was the science and art of reasoning, with logic being the science of proof. According to Mill, the deductive method is "the mode of investigation which, from the proved inapplicability of direct methods of observation and experiment, remains to us as the main source of the knowledge we possess or can acquire respecting the conditions and laws of recurrence, of the more complex phenomena" and consists of three operations; direct induction, ratiocination and verification (1882: 325),

Poe continues in Mellonta Tauta with the importance of guessing, aligning the act of guessing to that of imagining. It is here the correlation to the process of abduction proposed by Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) is apparent. Peirce distinguished three types of reasoning: deductive, inductive and abductive. The deductive method requires making an inference from a known, general principle, which provides a certainty in reaching a conclusion. Inductive reasoning begins with observations and knowledge about the observed phenomena from which a hypothesis is developed. With induction, there is a measure of probability assigned to a given conclusion. Abductive reasoning requires creativity, intuition, and imagination to generate new ideas about observed phenomena.7 Abduction is the process of forming hunches about the world based on observation and perception ( Eco and Sebeok, 1983: 18). Peirce described the method of abductive reasoning as being based on human perception, which included an element of guesswork. According to Peirce, abduction provided the best explanation of observations, or facts, in reaching a conclusion since the majority of human reasoning was based on conjecture (see Buchler, 1955 and Eco and Sebeok, 1983). 14 Abduction is the first step in reasoning in which the significance of observation is evaluated using guesswork, experience and insight to develop an explanation for what one sees. According to Harrowitz, "abduction is the step in between a fact and its origin; the instinctive, perceptual jump which allows the subject to guess an origin which can then be tested out to prove or disprove the hypothesis" (in Eco and Sebeok, 1983: 182). Upon careful reflection of the facts, the best hypothesis, or explanation of observed phenomena could be selected based on simplicity and rationality ( Buchler, 1955: 155). While validation through testing is necessary to establish support for conclusions resulting from abductive reasoning, the conclusions drawn by a detective from such reasoning methods during the preliminary stages of an investigation can prove useful in providing leads and guiding the investigation. In her essay, The Body of the Detective Model: Charles S. Peirce and Edgar Allan Poe, Harrowitz describes a process as moving from abduction, which suggests; to induction, which shows; and finally to deduction, which proves (in Eco and Sebeok, 1983: 181).

Ratiocination is characterized by the use of observation and analytical reasoning to develop a clear explanation of experiences and encounters. The process rests on the scientific method, which was a product of the philosophers and scientists seeking to better understand the unexplainable phenomena around them. Poe's ratiocination incorporated the logic of Mill and the imagination of Tyndall. It is likely that the deductive method, as defined by Mill, is akin to the process of deduction referenced in Poe's stories. When comparing Poe's tales of ratiocination to the works of Tyndall and Mill, the influence is striking, as will be detailed in the following section of this essay.

Poe and tales of ratiocination

Many of Poe's stories include direct dialogue about the narrator's method of ratiocination ( Maelzel's Chess Player, 1836; A Descent into the Maelstrom, 1841; and The Man of the Crowd, 1840). Poe's stories of criminal investigation and detective work are intertwined with the process of ratiocination either directly, as in the three tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin (1841-1844) or indirectly, as in Thou Art the Man (1844). In The Oblong Box, 1844, Poe explores the pitfalls of reasoning incorrectly when one too hastily draws a conclusion without considering the links between the observed evidence.

In Maelzel's Chess Player and A Descent into the Maelstrom, Poe's narrators use ratiocination in their efforts to problem solve and draw conclusions about observed phenomena. In Maelzel's Chess Player, the narrator undertakes the problem of determining whether or not the mechanical, automated chess player of Maelzel is a pure machine.8 More accurately, the narrator takes the approach that, due to the definition of a pure machine and the nature of chess as a game of uncertainty, it is not really a question of whether or not the chess player is a pure machine, but the manner in which human agency is brought to bear on the automated chess player to demonstrate that it is not a pure machine. The narrator outlines a series of observations during frequent visits to the demonstration of the chess player, which provides evidence to support the ability of a man to fit inside the interior of the chess player and operate it undetected by the audience or the challenger. The narrator further draws links between these observations and the behaviour of the owners and their accomplices during the chess player's operation and when it was put out of service. In A Descent into the Maelstrom, the narrator describes a most powerful and violent whirlpool, from which his escape was an exercise in ratiocination. Observation and experience were key factors in his survival; by observing the objects trapped in the whirlpool and correlating their behaviour within the whirlpool (speed of descent, absorption) with their physical characteristics (size and shape), the narrator was able to grab onto something of ideal size and shape to avoid being sucked into the vortex of the whirlpool.

In The Man of the Crowd, the narrator of Poe's tale makes a statement that can be directly linked to the practices of Vidocq during his time as a criminal investigator for the Sûreté. In the passage, Poe acknowledges the power of observation to establish the causal links that lend themselves to identification, "At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn, I looked at the passengers in masses, and thought of them in their aggregate relations. Soon, however, I descended to details, and regarded with minute interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance" ( Poe, 1994: 212). The narrator lays out his ability to detect a class of people (for example, clerks, gamblers and clergymen) based on a series of physical traits and behaviours. But to the narrator, the man of the crowd is the one that blends in no matter where he ends up; eventually determining that this man is "the type and genius of deep crime" ( Poe, 1994: 217). In his Memoirs, Vidocq describes a career of observation similar to the narrator in The Man of the Crowd,

I have been able to distinguish the character proper of each species, the physiognomy, language, habits, manners, dress, arrangement and details; I have studied all, remembered all: and if an individual pass before me, if he be a robber by profession, I will point him out, I will even tell his line of business. Frequently from inspection of a single article of clothing I would more quickly describe a thief from head to heel ... There is in the garb of a rogue hieroglyphics which can be deciphered with [more] certainty ... The indications I shall furnish will be more precise, and certainly more ascertained and positive, guarding carefully against the spirit in the system which only generates errors... 16 ( Vidocq, 1834: 367).

This early influence of Vidocq on Poe's The Man of the Crowd can be seen as foreshadowing the introduction of C. Auguste Dupin. The first story featuring Dupin, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, was published one year after The Man of the Crowd. While each of the three Dupin tales differ in approach; the first a "locked door", "whodunit" mystery with no real crime actually committed; the second an "unsolved crime" based on a real case; and in the third, the perpetrator is known to the police and Dupin must outwit the individual to recover a stolen object. From the first to the last tale, there is a gradual decline in the detail provided in describing Dupin's methodology and reasoning process.9 Poe's inability to reconcile the challenges in true crime investigations could have affected his steadfastness to the reasoning methods he so ardently believed in. In addition, there is a decline in the macabre as the Dupin series progresses. Poe begins with a violent, horrific and bloody scene in The Murders of the Rue Morgue and ends the Dupin series with the search for a stolen letter; a story in which no violence takes place whatsoever. What does remain consistent in the series of Dupin tales is the attention to police ineptitude. Since organized law enforcement and a methodical approach to criminal investigations were in their infancy, Poe was able to draw attention to the weaknesses in such processes.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue begins with a treatise on analytical thinking by means of games like chess, draughts, and whist. 18 An excerpt from the portion on the card game of whist becomes critical to gaining insight into what would be Poe's views of the police as addressed throughout the Dupin series,

Poe further addresses the relation between the imagination and the analytic, and the reader is steadfastly moved from Poe's philosophical rhetoric to being introduced to Dupin and his "peculiar analytic ability" ( Poe, 1994: 78). After explaining his method of ratiocination to his companion, Dupin and his associate begin to delve into the murders in the Rue Morgue. First, the horrific, grotesque crime of brutal ferocity is introduced; of the two victims, one is beaten severely and forced up a chimney and the other is found severely mutilated, decapitated and having been tossed out of a window. Upon learning of the details of the case from the news reports, including the statement, "To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we, believe, the slightest clew" ( Poe, 1994: 81), Dupin uses ratiocination to assess the facts as outlined in the reports. Upon the assertions that there could be no way to trace the murderer, Dupin addresses the limitations of the police and their investigatory abilities,

Dupin continues his passage with a sentiment similar to Tyndall's microscope analogy, noting a "scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, too direct" (ibid). From the passage above the reader can infer that Poe's impression of the police at the time he wrote The Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of disorganization, substantial inefficiency and dumb luck. It is reasonable to conjecture that there were likely many instances in this time period when cases went unsolved or criminals were caught by chance. It is also apparent that Poe is highlighting the fact that the police were unable to match wits with their adversaries with his comment that they were "ill adapted at the objects proposed" ( Poe, 1994: 85).10 This passage also directly refers to Vidocq and his methods, which Poe felt were inadequate for such analytical, challenging cases. Finally, when discussing his methodology in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dupin indicates that he uses Bacon's a posteriori, or inductive, method of thinking. In addition to the critical examination of crime scene protocol, other issues addressed by Poe in The Murders in the Rue Morgue "include the subjectivity, fallacy and general unreliability of eyewitness and ear witness identifications, in addition to what is known as police tunnel vision in approaching crime scenes and developing theories on suspects without supporting evidence or the proper application of suspectology ... Poe explores how this practice-looking at evidence subjectively and without presuppositions or theories already in place-can also obfuscate key evidence left at the scene and unnecessarily stall investigations" ( Arntfield, 2016: 63)

In the sequel to The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, Dupin was approached by the police to look into the murder of Marie Rogêt because of his earlier success with the deaths in the Rue Morgue. Dupin describes the crime as an ordinary crime; unlike the deaths that occurred in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which were at the hands of an escaped ourang-outang. "There is nothing peculiarly outré about it. You will observe that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason it should have been considered difficult, of solution" ( Poe, 1994: 495). This statement is critical-it implies that the case was doomed from the beginning; by assuming that the case would be solved, the proper investigation was not conducted. The responsibility and oversight of properly conducted investigations fall on the police, who in turn, failed to conduct a proper enquiry from the start. Upon reviewing the police evidence report and copies of all newspapers and publications related to the investigation, Dupin systematically evaluates the assumptions made by the writers of the news articles. Essentially, Dupin demonstrates that, by building on a series of false premises (or a series of preconceived notions), the investigator (and in general, the "reasoner") can never arrive at a correct conclusion. In addition, Dupin laments the poor job done examining the body. Based on the coroner system in place at the time, it was not a far leap for Poe to make this assertion. Dupin also addresses the importance of causal links to accidental and seemingly irrelevant events and the importance of such events in directing the enquiry into an investigation ( Poe, 1994: 506). In The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, Poe addresses the statistical significance of identification when Dupin discusses the determination that the corpse found is that of Marie Rogêt,

While Bertillon had yet to write his treatise on anthropometry, Poe noted the importance of such biometric data, especially when considering the compounding relevance of all of the physical characteristics of the body. This statement is also important because Dupin notes the transition from the probable (induction) to certain proof (deduction). Another important concept Poe delves into is that of identity, a psychological, physiological and forensic enquiry that targets the subjectivity of identification and pattern recognition, "Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any one is prepared to give a reason for his recognition" ( Poe, 1994: 503).

In The Purloined Letter, the attention to the limitations of the police is central to the story. From the initial visit of the Prefect of Parisian police, Monsieur G-, up through Dupin's explanation of how he solved the crime, the narrator highlights the boundaries of police knowledge, "...the Prefect, had the fashion of calling everything 'odd' that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of 'oddities' " ( Poe, 1994: 320). The simplicity of the case is stressed on several occasions in the story, 20 with Dupin also using the words "plain" and "self-evident" in describing the crime to the Prefect. According to Dupin, the police were unable to locate the purloined letter because their methods were not suited for the case and the perpetrator, with the Prefect having a set of resources "to which he forcibly adapts his designs...perpetually err[ing] by being too deep or too shallow for the matter in hand" ( Poe, 1994: 326). The Prefect, being accustomed to thinking in a certain way and investigating in a rigid manner, is thereby unable to consider alternate options and think outside of his set police policies and procedures.11 The police were unable to identify the perpetrator's level of intellect and cater their investigation accordingly. By failing to consider the perpetrator's ingenuity, the police lacked the ability to think of where he could have hidden the letter, only thinking of the surreptitious ways and secret places that they, the police, would hide the letter. This is consistent with what Dupin addressed in The Murders Rue Morgue-first, that "No secret issues could have escaped their vigilance. But, not trusting their eyes, I examined with my own" ( Poe, 1994: 89); and second, the matter of studying the countenance and behaviour of one's opponents, which Poe addressed in his discussion of whist. Most importantly, once again the police were biased; they assumed the perpetrator was a fool. Here the reader can see Tyndall's impact on Poe, "As a poet and mathematician, [the perpetrator] would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all" ( Poe, 1994: 328). Dupin finds the purloined letter by first reasoning that it would be in plain sight. By observing the differences in the original letter and the letter as it had been altered by the perpetrator, specifically how such a fastidious individual would not be in the habit of mistreating and subsequently retaining such a tattered object, Dupin further reasoned that such behaviour was uncharacteristic of the perpetrator. Here, the combination of imagination and ratiocination come together to lead once again to Dupin's ability to disentangle.

The last of the Dupin series did not end Poe's pursuit of criminal investigation. In Thou Art the Man, Poe not only addresses reasoning, but includes a discussion of crime scene investigation and forensic evidence and their role in the narrator's crime reconstruction. In this tale, the firearms evidence becomes central to determining the murderer of Mr Shuttleworthy. After presenting a series of convincing circumstances, Goodfellow 22 uses reasoning to find the prime suspect, Mr Pennifeather, responsible for the crime, "[Goodfellow's] sincerest affection for [Pennifeather]...had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagination could suggest, by way of endeavoring to account for what appeared suspicious in the circumstances that told so seriously against Mr Pennifeather; but these circumstances were now altogether too convincing- too damning; he would hesitate no longer-he would tell all he knew..."12 ( Poe, 1994: 542; emphasis in the original 24). Shortly after, a postmortem examination of the horse of Shuttleworthy is conducted (by Goodfellow, nonetheless) and physical evidence is presented. Poe inserts the discipline of forensic firearms examination13 in his tale upon discovery of the projectile in the horse,

This overwhelming evidence was not challenged, and so Pennifeather was swiftly found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Goodfellow had successfully planted evidence, in turn deflecting suspicion from himself and setting Pennifeather up to be held accountable for the murder. But the narrator describes his suspicions, which are largely based on the narrator's understanding of ballistics and attention to detail (and of course the importance of reading one's opponent),

The descriptions in Poe's tale can be directly correlated to advancements in criminal investigation and forensic science in the Gothic era. In 1835, Henry Goddard of the Bow Street Runners used bullet evidence to capture and convict a murderer. Goddard had noticed that the bullet from the victim had a characteristic gouge which was later linked to a mould in the murder's residence, a mould having a flaw that corresponded to the gouge in the bullet ( Thorwald, 1965: 417).

Another interesting feature about Thou Art the Man is the two different individuals producing two different lines of reasoning in concert throughout the story. Goodfellow's line of reasoning is logical, but of course, false. Yet the citizens involved in the enquiry had no reason to question Goodfellow (after all, he was a good fellow). Meanwhile, the narrator, using observation, reasoning and imagination, brought on by the suspicion that all of the evidence was too convincing (and entirely presented by Goodfellow), followed his own line of reasoning to uncover the true murderer. This disparity, a weakness in crime investigation, was not lost on Poe, as it was a concept he captured in the Dupin series at the hands of the Paris police. This weakness still exists in current criminal investigations, even if it is not necessarily done with malicious intent. False reasoning, brought about by cognitive biases, may result in the police detective following a chain of reasoning that is a function of tunnel vision, or of manipulating the evidence to fit the scenario preferred by the police detective.

In the final scene of Thou Art the Man, Poe upholds the Gothic focus on the horrific and macabre. At a festive dinner party, a large package is placed on the table and its contents are, "disemboweled" in a ceremonial "disinterring" of the treasure 26 to expose, "the bruised, bloody, and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered Mr Shuttleworthy himself" ( Poe, 1994: 545). To make the scene more morbid, the corpse is rigged by the narrator to sit up upon removal of the lid and declare "thou art the man" in the face of one drunken Goodfellow, who seals his fate by dying at that moment from sheer horror and shock.

Another of Poe's tales incorporating a decomposing corpse and the perils of reasoning improperly is The Oblong Box. While not a detective, the narrator amuses himself with his reasoning ability only to find out his logic was flawed. By failing to submit himself to the holistic power of observation, imagination, and experience, the narrator, self-described as being "abnormally inquisitive about trifles" ( Poe, 1994: 264) overlooked the obvious when drawing his conclusions by failing to recognize the links between his observations: an empty stateroom; a wife distinctly different in appearance and personality from that which was described to the narrator prior to meeting for the first time; the apparent avoidance of the wife by the husband; a distracted husband described by the narrator as morose, exhibiting signs of grief throughout the story; withdrawn family members; and a box, which the narrator describes as a 6 ft by two and a half feet, peculiarly shaped, and made of pine from which emitted a strong, disagreeable, peculiarly disgusting odour ( Poe, 1994: 266). Further failure on the part of the narrator is demonstrated in his inability to link the sounds of the opening of the box with the distinct sobs of the husband during the night; and the narrator's inability to understand the significance of the salt reference made by the captain14 when the husband risks his life to remain with the box during a shipwreck.

Much like he did in the Dupin series, Poe reminds the reader that assumptions, too much focus on trifles without recognition of the links and significance among such trifles, and impulsivity in jumping to conclusions can render one's conclusion baseless and built on a false chain of reasoning. Again, the danger of cognitive bias and effectively moudling one's observations to fit a hastily developed theory is presented. The narrator begins to force his observations to fit into his hypothesis that the box contains artwork 28- asserting that he is "sufficiently settled" on the point as if not willing or capable of considering any alternate hypotheses (ibid.). From this point, the narrator distorts all contrary evidence to that which fits into his assertion. The smell becomes the byproduct of the tar or paint on the lid of the box; the husband's behaviour towards his wife was because of disgust from a hasty, regrettable decision to marry in which divorce was imminent; the opening of the box at night was due to the artistic indulgences of the husband and his sobbing sounds were merely ringing in the ears of the narrator. The Oblong Box takes a direct trajectory towards the incorrect and draws attention to the limitations of method and man.

Crime solving, including advancements in criminological theories and investigative techniques as well as the development and organization of police, had substantial impact on Poe's works of Gothic fiction. In addition, Poe's literature was impacted by the philosophical and epistemological debates in the nineteenth century concerning thought, reasoning and scientific methodology. Although cliché, Poe's writing demonstrates that he was a progressive thinker and ahead of his time, especially with respect to criminal investigations. Despite his lack of "success" in "solving" the case of Mary Rogers (Marie Rogêt), Poe demonstrated an ability to evaluate and dispute alternate theories posited about the events surrounding Mary's disappearance and death. It would be more than forty years between the end of Poe's Dupin and the introduction of Doyle's consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Evidence of Poe's impact on Doyle's works of fiction are apparent, from his detective stories to Doyle's tales of the supernatural.

Doyle: following the footsteps of poe

Poe's influence on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is readily apparent in not just his detective stories featuring the famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, but also Doyle's works of terror, mystery and the supernatural. While Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series from 1887-1927 was a great success, Doyle's other works included lesser-known tales of horror and the supernatural. Many of these stories share a direct correlation to the works of Poe, establishing Poe's influence on a variety of Doyle's stories. Oftentimes, Doyle demonstrated that theories of the supernatural could be unraveled through scientific reasoning. By shifting perspective and applying science and reasoning, Doyle was able to utilize Sherlock Holmes to disprove those instances of the unexplainable. Like Poe, Doyle has two premises: the rational scientific idea that events are linked in an unaccidental chain, and the individualistic notion that a single enquirer can-and should-establish the links ( Knight, 1980: 68).

Doyle's tales of horror and the supernatural

A selection of Doyle's tales focused on horror and the supernatural, with little to no reference to reasoning. Likely influenced by Poe's tales, Doyle also crafted stories of the "locked room" mystery style. Doyle's tale The New Catacomb (1898), parallels Poe's The Cask of Amontillado (1846), where one man is effectively "buried alive" on purpose by his trusted acquaintance after following the friend on a seemingly innocent venture. In these stories, both Doyle and Poe rely on trust and vengeance to stir the anxiety of the reader.15

In The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe (1877), Doyle tells a tale of two friends who stay overnight in a suspected haunted house and encounter blood dripping from the ceiling and two frightening ghosts. In a tale with a similar name, Selecting a Ghost: The Ghosts of Goresthorpe Grange (1883), Doyle takes the tale from a lighthearted, almost humorous attempt at one man's quest to acquire a ghost for his mansion to his frightening encounter with a series of specters vying for the position. In this tale, Doyle also begins to demonstrate how science and reasoning can explain the real cause for the visions of haunting specters. After enlisting the help of a "professional spiritualist" who goes through a series of rituals, 30 a progression of ghosts presents themselves to the owner of the mansion, each more haunting than the previous: the invisible entity; the fiendish old woman; the cavalier; the leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood; a murderer and ruffian, the American blood-curdler; and the beautiful woman, forsaken and betrayed. Doyle writes, "I am the American blood-curdler...I am the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe. I am circumstantial and horrible. I am a low-caste spirit-subduing spectre. Observe my blood and my bones. I am grisly and nauseous. No depending on artificial aid. Work with grave clothes, a coffin-lid, and a galvanic battery.16 Turn hair white in a night..." 32 (1982: 141). Doyle reorients the tale from that of the unknown to a rational, scientific explanation. The "professional spiritualist" was really an experienced burglar, and the grotesque visions of the supernatural are due to the liquid ingested by the owner at the direction of the spiritualist; he was drugged. This drug "reduced him to a partial state of insensibility" in which "circumstantial and bizarre visions [will] present themselves" ( Doyle, 1982: 143). Doyle rectifies the supernatural by providing a logical, scientific solution based on advancements in toxicology.

In The Silver Hatchet (1883), the reader again sees scientific explanation eliminate any semblance of the unknown in a tale of violence and the supernatural. After a series of brutal murders in which the first victim's head was "literally split in two halves by a tremendous blow which, it was conjectured, must have been struck from behind" and the second victim "so mutilated that he was hardly recognizable, with his head cloven open similar to the first victim with numerous deep gashes indicating the fury with which the murderer continued to hack the lifeless body" ( Haining, 1987: 61), it is apparent that some "savage" is committing these crimes.17 The forensic examination, specifically wound pattern analysis, conducted by an "eminent medico-jurist" enabled the crimes to be linked by the weapon employed. Upon discovery and direct observation by a group of individuals of the effects of a cursed silver hatchet, the narrator states, "against all reason, science, and everything else though it be, there is a charm at work" ( Haining, 1987: 68) But alas, the eminent medico-jurist presents a reasonable hypothesis that a diffusible poison may have been placed on the hatchet to bring on sudden and acute attacks of homicidal mania ( Haining, 1987: 70). Doyle again refers to the advancements in forensic toxicology to reason that a poison, not an ancient curse, is responsible for the behaviour of the individual wielding the silver hatchet.

Doyle and reasoning

In three of Doyle's mysteries, The Fate of the Evangeline (1885), The Lost Special (1898) and The Man with the Watches (1898), subtle references to the reasoning methods applied to solving the cases are present. In The Fate of the Evangeline, which was published prior to the introduction of Sherlock Holmes and which features the tale of a ship and its female passenger who have disappeared under mysterious and unexplained circumstances, a direct reference to Dupin and his methodology of reasoning is presented, "It would be well ... if those who express opinions upon such subjects would bear in mind those simple rules as the analysis of evidence laid down by Auguste Dupin. "Exclude the impossible", he remarks in one of Poe's immortal stories, 'and what is left, however improbable, must be the truth' " ( Doyle, 1982: 203). 34

Furthermore, the commentator laments that in the solutions presented concerning the fate of the Evangeline, "conjecture is so rife" (ibid.). What is important in reading this story is to appreciate that the solution put forth by the commentator who referenced the methodology of Dupin, who posits a series of impossibilities to support his conclusion, is wrong. In fact, the "doubly impossible" scenario presented by the commentator ends up being the solution to the mystery. Much like the narrator's reasoning in Poe's The Oblong Box, Doyle recognizes and exploits Poe's assertion that there is always a chance that one's reasoning is flawed. This, in the mind of Poe, can be the case if the reasoner has limited experience and imagination or fails to utilize these concepts when problem solving.

In The Lost Special, in which a train appears to vanish without a trace, the narrator describes that various newspapers and private individuals are coming forth with explanations for the vanishing train, "One...attempted to deal with the matter in a critical and semi-scientific manner ... It is one of the Elementary principals of practical reasoning ... that's when the impossible has been eliminated the residuum, however improbable, must contain the truth ..." ( Doyle, 1977: 118). The narrator continues the explanation, peppered with phrases such as "it is certain", "it is the highest degree unlikely, but still possible", "it is obviously impossible" and "it is improbable, but it is not impossible" (ibid.), and a directive to focus the investigation on observation. This line of reasoning is a direct nod to that of Sherlock Holmes, the series which Doyle had been writing for more than ten years when The Lost Special was published. Published the same year, The Man with the Watches, a case in which a train passenger is found dead while two other passengers have disappeared from a moving train, presents a mystery of which the process of reasoning must intervene,

This statement of reasoning is very critical for several reasons. First, Doyle's "fanciful explanation" can be directly correlated with Poe's (or more correctly, Tyndall's) concept of imagination, as opposed to the analytic.18 Second, the reference to the dependence on a combination of events implies the importance of causality and understanding the links between occurrences. Third, the statement walks the reader through the path of reasoning, which is similar to the process of moving from abduction, to induction, and finally to deduction presented by Harrowitz. The "synthetic fashion" (in lieu of the analytic or scientific method) along with the incorporation of the fanciful explanation implies abduction, or guesswork. This is followed by testing and probability, which is induction, and the progression to the "final and convincing" is deduction. Finally, Doyle's reference to a "geometrical progression" is a direct nod to the compounding significance of evidence referenced by Poe in The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. Moreover, Doyle subtlety addresses the limitations of law enforcement in The Man with the Watches, with the narrator remarking, "The police had little difficulty in showing that such a theory would not cover the facts, but they were unprepared in the absence of evidence to advance any alternate explanations" ( Doyle, 1977: 152).

Doyle's A Pastoral Horror (1890) shares much in common with Poe's Thou Art the Man; a murder mystery set in an isolated town with a conclusion being made with the assistance of forensic evidence and crime scene reconstruction. In addition to the brutality and violence of the murders, madness is to blame, which fulfills the horror and social anxiety elements prominent in Gothic fiction. The narrator, John Hudson, takes the reader through a series of crimes occurring in the spring of 1866 in an idyllic, isolated village. Upon hearing of the first murder, Hudson partakes in an examination of the body and its injuries, Doyle's homage to wound reconstruction and forensic pathology,

[On] the back of the heads a singular triangular wound was found, which had smashed the bone and penetrated deeply into the brain. It had evidently been inflicted by a heavy blow from a sharp pointed pyramidal instrument... [The Pastor] suggested probability of the weapon in question having been a short mattock or small pickaxe, such as are to be found in every Alpine cottage. The Intendant, with praiseworthy promptness, at once obtained one and striking a turnip, produced just such a curious gap as was to be seen in [the victim's] 36 head ( Doyle, 1982: 278).

An investigation committee is formed and, after interviewing witnesses, Hudson and his committee "gathered and connected a series of facts" (ibid.). Here, the process of criminal investigation is coupled with crime scene investigation to begin the process of reconstruction. Shortly thereafter, another crime is committed in which the victim "had met his death by an exactly similar wound to which had proved fatal" ( Doyle, 1982: 281) to the first victim. Upon the suspect's third attempt at murder, he is unsuccessful, and the intended victim is able to leave deep scratches in the assailant's wrist. This proves to be an important clue, as the marks are revealed and the assailant is determined to be the Pastor. It is determined that the Pastor is apparently suffering from a "terrible and insidious form of insanity" of which Hudson, upon retrospection, realizes the symptoms and behaviour of the Pastor were indicative of such insanity that would induce homicidal mania ( Doyle, 1982: 289).19

Sherlock Holmes' power of perception and problem solving rests on abductive reasoning. Although Doyle refers to deduction as Holmes' reasoning methodology, abduction is the primary means by which Holmes develops his initial hypotheses. Although Holmes occasionally asserts that he does not guess, he is actually doing so in the initial stages of his investigations. 38 In their essay, Sebeok and Umiker-Sebeok write, "What makes Sherlock Holmes so successful a detective is not that he never guesses, but that he guesses so well" (in Eco and Sebeok, 1983: 22). Throughout the narratives in his adventures, Holmes verifies his hypotheses through observation, experiential knowledge, the collection of clues, and testing (induction), ultimately arriving at a conclusion with a measure of certainty (deduction). 20 Holmes' references to the importance of observation and the utilization of imagination, intuition and speculation, demonstrate that the actual methods he applies to problem solving are based on abductive reasoning. Like Poe's ratiocinative-abductive narrator in A Descent into the Maelstrom, Holmes "has specific scientific knowledge gained through previous [experience] and a keen power of observation ... which allow him to make conjectures...He then postulates a rule which would explain certain ... facts ..." (in Eco and Sebeok, 1983: 186).

Sherlock holmes and horror

While the Sherlock Holmes series was more aligned with detective fiction and advances in forensic science, some of the tales had remnants of those elements of classic Gothic fiction. Specifically, The Hound of Baskervilles (1902), The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (1910), The Adventure of the Creeping Man (1923), and The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire (1924). In the latter story, upon hearing of the possibility of the "suspect" being a vampire, Holmes asserts, "What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It's pure lunacy" ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 463). As expected, Sherlock is able to dispose of the supernatural hypothesis and arrive at a conclusion based on science, reason and causality. It is not the sucking of blood occurring for thirst of a vampire, but the sucking of a wound from an arrow impregnated with poison to save the life of the injured, who is helpless at the hands of the perpetrator. Using observation and confirmation to support his hypothesis, Holmes declares, "It has been a case for intellectual deduction, but when this original intellectual deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent incidents, then the subjective becomes the objective and we can say confidently that we have reached our goal ..." ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 472). In this statement, it appears that the reference to deduction is more in line with that of Mill. Here, Holmes' observation and ratiocination are supplemented by verification, which brings about a certainty in results. Holmes' linking of a series of independent incidents provides the element of causality.

In The Adventure of the Creeping Man, parallels exist between the behaviour of the creeping man and that of the character in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 40 ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 765), with the underlying premise being that an elixir taken by the creeping man imbued upon him strange, animal like behaviours. The "evil" causing the creeping man's behaviour is due to a serum from a climbing and creeping monkey. Here again, the degeneration, or reversion from man to monkey correlate to the prevailing scientific debates in the nineteenth century concerning atavism and evolution. In The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, what appears to be human possession by the devil, leading to insanity and death, ends up being the effects of exposure to a powerful poison. This is another instance of the advancements in forensic toxicology (as well as the exponential use of poisons to commit murder) in the nineteenth century having a decided impact on the story lines presented by Doyle.

The Hound of the Baskervilles includes several elements characteristic of Gothic fiction. The ominous Baskerville estate and the eerie moor, a hound representing death and evil, and the supernatural elements of the hound haunting the Baskerville estate, "A creature upon the moor which corresponds with the Baskerville demon, and which could not possibly be any animal known to science...A huge creature, luminous, ghastly and spectral" ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 15). Further described as a "dreadful apparition" and a "hell hound" ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 16), the hound has a thirst for blood and a desire to kill. Using science, Doyle is able to explain the seemingly supernatural qualities of the beast; when Holmes and Watson encounter the creature, the blusih flame dripping from its mouth that provided the spectral glow is declared as being " a cunning preparation" of phosphorous ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 101). Reflecting the sentiments of Poe's Dupin, Holmes states, "The more outré and grotesque an incident is, the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it" ( Baring-Gould, 1967: 109)

Doyle's stories of reasoning and the supernatural demonstrate that the influence of early Gothic fiction from Poe, as well as the scientific, philosophical, and criminological progress of the nineteenth century greatly influenced Doyle's work. These factors provided insight into the effects of criminal justice, scientific discourse and epistemological enquiry on society in the second half of the nineteenth century. In addition, although fictional, Sherlock Holmes and his methods of reasoning became the cornerstone of modern criminal investigation and forensic science.

Conclusions

Although considered Gothic fiction, the works presented by Poe and Doyle blur the real with the imaginary. Gothic society was fearful of many intrusions, from disease and poverty to crime and degeneration. These fears, compounded by advances and enquiry in science, technology and epistemology, were exploited by many Gothic writers-from the walking dead and lab-created monsters to madness and evil specters. Successful authors found ways to make their fictional tales horrific by weaving in elements of moral panic and socio-cultural beliefs to give their macabre tales an air of reality. Degeneration, criminological theories of atavism and psychological theories of madness sparked fears that Poe and Doyle were able to capture in their stories.

The Gothic/Victorian Gothic eras brought forth the development of policing and the advancement of the natural sciences to criminal investigation, which Poe and Doyle were able to superimpose on their tales of mystery. While scholars and practitioners weighed in on epistemology and reasoning, Doyle and Poe were able to exploit the weaknesses in law enforcement and the limitations of knowledge on the ability to solve crimes. For a society that feared violent crime and needed law and order, the state of policing left much to be desired. Fear and horror were driven by the madman, loose on the streets, committing violent acts without fear of impunity. The police, corrupt and disorganized, did not have the mental faculties to apprehend such savages, allowing them to diffuse from regions of poverty to those of the elite classes.

An important recurring theme on the stories by Poe and Doyle is the inherent weakness in application of reasoning to investigations. With the intersection of law and science coming to the forefront of crime investigation in the nineteenth century came the necessity to utilize proper methods of reasoning to guide methods of investigating and problem solving. Poe and Doyle recognized this, and carefully crafted tales to include horror, crime, science and philosophy. Since the development of what was known as police science,21 the term criminalistics 42 has been developed to capture the integration of science, criminal investigation and reasoning. What is important about Poe's and Doyle's detective stories is their recognition of the importance of having an individual with the capability to apply scientific reasoning to an investigation, specifically at the crime scene and when evaluating evidence.

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How to cite this article: Miranda M (2017) Reasoning through madness: the detective in Gothic crime fiction. Palgrave Communications. 3:17045 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2017.45.

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Farmingdale State College, SUNY, Farmingdale, NY, USA

Michelle Miranda

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Reasoning through madness: the detective in Gothic crime fiction - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

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The Gothic era dealt in fear and the unknown, with early nineteenth century Gothic fiction being characterized by the macabre and influenced by the Enlightenment. The scientific and industrial revolutions of the eighteenth century brought forth advanced scientific theories and modes of reasoning, which found their way into the narratives of Gothic works.

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The Emergence, Growth, Decline, and Revival of Gothic Architecture

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The Emergence, Growth, Decline, and Revival of Gothic Architecture

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By Dr. Peter Lindfield

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Brodie castle, north Scotland. Albert de Bruijn
By Dr. Peter Lindfield / 10.30.2016
Postdoctoral Researcher, Literature and Languages
Stirling University

If you want foreboding old buildings that dark lords and werewolves are bound to frequent, look no further than Britain's enviable Gothic architecture. From Strawberry Hill in London with its twisting corridors and glaring pinnacles, to ruined abbeys and cathedrals such as St Andrews and Jedburgh, darkness seems to thrive in these places - the perfect location for a Halloween party if you're lucky enough to be invited.

What is often not appreciated is that this style had two distinct periods of glory, with a long time out of favour in between. And it's not just their tall spires and endless corridors and gargoyles that brought these structures supernatural associations. The dark reputation they gained in their wilderness years helped, too.

Gothic was in its pomp in medieval and Tudor Britain. Famous examples include Salisbury cathedral in southern England, Caernarfon castle in Wales and Melrose castle and Brodie castle in Scotland. The style was used by church, state and universities, Oxford and Cambridge especially. It was certainly not associated with terror in this period - more with the potential perils of sin and Purgatory, or the rigours of academia.
Peter Lindfield
Gothic waned in the 17th century, replaced by the round-arched and rationalised style of Classicism. Imported from the continent and inspired by ancient Greece and Rome, the new style came to prominence in London public and private works such as the Banqueting House, Whitehall and The Queen's House, Greenwich.

Classicism continued to spread in the 18th century, while Gothic came to be seen as barbaric. It was intentionally connected with the Goths by critics who favoured Greek and Roman architecture. These included the Renaissance artists Raphael and Vasari, and Georgian intellectuals such as John Evelyn and architects like Isaac Ware (Ware would later introduce certain Gothic elements into his work). These people often argued that when the Goths sacked Rome in the fifth century, they destroyed "proper" Classical architecture and introduced a backward, coarse style - Gothic - in its place.

In the first half of the 18th century in particular, almost all the major architects promoted Classicism. As the Scottish minister and writer Alexander Gerard put it in 1759:

the profusion of ornament, bestowed on the parts, in Gothic structures, may please one who has not acquired enlargement of mind ... where refinement is wanting, taste must be coarse and vulgar.

Worse still in those days, Gothic was associated with the Catholics. Catholicism in the 1700s was viewed with suspicion and concern, thanks partly to the Jacobite risings. Both were considered a threat to the Hanoverian and Classical order - never mind that the great medieval abbeys spared destruction in the Reformation had been put into the service of the Protestant church.

Torchbearers

Gothic was not cast aside entirely, however. One leading enthusiast was writer and historian Horace Walpole, the youngest son of Sir Robert, Britain's first prime minister. In 1748 he redeveloped Strawberry Hill, a collection of 17th-century tenement houses in London which are now known as the most important mid-Georgian example of Gothic Revival.
Paul Williams
Walpole's choices were rooted in a love of medieval architecture and genealogy. He presented his project as realising the castle of his ancestors, painting their coats of arms on the walls of the house's armoury, for example.
Wikimedia
Gothic's grim associations meanwhile found an outlet in its other notable form in Georgian Britain, the Gothic novel. Horace Walpole was again a pioneer. The Castle of Otranto (1764) tells of incest, brutality and deceit and is set within what we can only interpret as a Gothic structure. Subsequent authors from Ann Radcliffe to Bram Stoker also located terrifying scenes and ghastly encounters in and around such buildings.

The form became so popular that an anonymous letter published in The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1797 proposed a satirical "formula" for writing a Gothic novel. It highlights the centrality of Gothic structures to the genre:

Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous.
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones.
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck; with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes quant suff.
Noise, whispers, and groans, threescore at least.

The second coming

Then in the 19th century, Gothic made a stylistic comeback. This was helped by antiquaries in the mid-Georgian period who had studied Gothic works and treated them as part of Britain's architectural heritage.

By the time the Palace of Westminster was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1834, fashions had come full circle. For a competition to commission a new building, the brief said it had to be "either Gothic or Elizabethan". It had to preserve "those venerable and beautiful remains of [Gothic] antiquity, the cloisters and the Crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel".

One supporter argued:

Gothic is eminently English in every respect ... It is the architecture of our history and our romance. Our kings of old held court in Gothic structures.

Dissenting voices such as the scientist and thinker WR Hamilton believed this revival "may possibly throw us back to the middle ages", but for the next few decades they were ignored. Gothic revivalism went hand in hand with top-hatted Victorians and their fixations with death and religion. We can still see the results in the likes of monuments to Prince Albert in London, and Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh.
ChrisA1995
When Gothic fell out of favour a second time in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, it was because of the availability of new materials such as glass and steel - and new priorities, such as functionality. Suggestions of Gothic barbarism and un-Britishness were left in the past. Ominous turrets and groaning archways may sometimes seem best suited to the sets of Dracula movies, but these glorious structures will always have a treasured place in British heritage.

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The Emergence, Growth, Decline, and Revival of Gothic Architecture

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Brodie castle, north Scotland. Albert de Bruijn By Dr. Peter Lindfield / 10.30.2016 Postdoctoral Researcher, Literature and Languages Stirling University If you want foreboding old buildings that dark lords and werewolves are bound to frequent, look no further than Britain's enviable Gothic architecture.

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By Paolo Neo
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Information on Gothic Art

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Gothic sculpture evolved from the early Romanesque style which was stiff and elongated. It had now transformed into a more spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th century. The first early Gothic sculptures came from the architectural statues at the Chartres Cathedral.