stories he was singularly happy in the problem he invented for solution.
For each of the three he found a fit theme, wholly different from that
employed in either of the others. He adroitly adjusted the proper
accessories, and he created an appropriate atmosphere. With no sense of
strain, and no awkwardness of manner, he dealt with episodes strange
indeed, but so simply treated as to seem natural, at least for the
moment. There is no violence of intrigue or conjecture; indeed Poe
strives to suggest a background of the commonplace against which his
marvels may seem the more marvelous. In none of his stories is Poe's
consummate mastery of the narrative art, his ultimate craftsmanship, his
certain control of all the devices of the most accomplished
story-teller, more evident than in these three.

And yet they are but detective-stories, after all; and Poe himself,
never prone to underestimate what he had written, spoke of them lightly
and even hinted that they had been overpraised. Probably they were easy
writing--for him--and therefore they were not so close to his heart as
certain other of his tales over which he had toiled long and
laboriously. Probably also he felt the detective-story to be an inferior
form. However superior his stories in this kind might be, he knew them
to be unworthy of comparison with his more imaginative tales, which he
had filled with a thrilling weirdness and which attained a soaring
elevation far above any height to be achieved by ingenious narratives
setting forth the solving of a puzzle.

It is in a letter to Philip Pendleton Cooke, written in 1846, that Poe
disparaged his detective-stories and declared that they "owe most of
their popularity to being something in a new key. I do not mean to say
that they are not ingenious--but people think them more ingenious than
they are--on account of their method and _air_ of method. In the