E X T E N S I O N DETECTIVE STORIES AND HORROR STORIES Between 1841 and 1845 Poe wrote five short stories that he called Tales of Ratiocination: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Gold Bug, The Mystery of Marie Roget, Thou Art the Man and The Purloined Letter. Their plots and features fixed certain principles that other writers of detective stories, such as Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen later used. They mix mystery and reasoning, ingredients that have separately created two types of detective stories: the sensational and the intellectual. In detective stories, the starting point is always either a crime or a mystery. In both cases a professional or amateur detective has to discover the truth. He finds a solution following the clues1 and making logical deductions. The detective sometimes goes to the place of the crime or mystery, questions people, looks for clues and details but sometimes he doesn t even leave his armchair, and limits his task to finding the connections and the logic among the pieces of information he has. Most of the story is focussed on the search for truth and so the reader, who is told the facts as the detective finds them out2, shares3 the detective s reasoning and accompanies him throughout his investigation. This way the reader has to use his own logical skills and cannot remain passive while reading. The climax is reached when the explanation of the crime or mystery has been found out. Poe influenced not only a good deal of detective story writers, but also numerous horror story writers. One of these, H. P. Lovecraft, considered the second greatest horror story writer after E. A. Poe, explicitly admitted his debt4 towards him. Horror stories aim5 to frighten the reader, who shares the characters feelings and reactions. Poe s intuition, as far as horror stories are concerned, was to write them in the first person, to emphasize 1. clue: fact or object that helps understand a crime. 2. find out: discover. 3. shares: has the same feeling or opinion. 4. debt: obligation to be grateful. 5. aim: want, are directed to. 53