'Murders in the Rue Morgue,' for instance, where is the ingenuity of
unraveling a web which you yourself (the author) have woven for the
express purpose of unraveling? The reader is made to confound the
ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of the writer of the
story." Here, surely, Poe is over-modest; at least he over-states the
case against himself. The ingenuity of the author obviously lies in his
invention of a web which seemingly cannot be unraveled and which
nevertheless one of the characters of the tale, Legrand or Dupin,
succeeds in unraveling at last. This ingenuity may be, in one way, less
than that required to solve an actual problem in real life; but it is
also, in another way, more, for it had to invent its own puzzle and to
put this together so that the secret seemed to be absolutely hidden,
altho all the facts needed to solve it were plainly presented to the
reader.

In the same letter to Cooke, Poe remarked on the "wide diversity and
variety" of his tales when contrasted one with another; and he asserted
that he did not consider any one better than another. "There is a vast
variety of kinds, and in degree of value these kinds vary--but each tale
is equally good _of its kind_." He added that "the loftiest kind is that
of the highest imagination." For this reason only he considered that
'Ligeia' might be called the best of his stories. Now, after a lapse of
threescore years, the 'Fall of the House of Usher,' with its "serene and
somber beauty," would seem to deserve the first place of all. And among
the detective-stories, standing on a lower plane as they do, because
they were wrought by invention rather than by the interpreting
imagination, the foremost position may be given to the 'Murders in the
Rue Morgue.' In this tale Poe's invention is most ingenious and his
subject is selected with the fullest understanding of the utmost
possibilities of the detective-story. At the core of it is a strange,