Series: Poe; Doyle; Heinlein; Anderson

 

It is getting late here. I might start a line of thought in this post and continue it later. Poe's three Dupin stories are what we call a series because of character continuity. There is not only Dupin himself but also the unnamed first person narrator, his assistant, a proto-Watson. However, "The Murder in the Rue Morgue" (1841) was published in Graham's Magazine, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" (1842) was serialized in three parts in Snowden's Ladies' Companion and "The Purloined Letter" (1844) was published in a literary annual, The Gift for 1845. I think that Doyle was the first author to conceive of a new kind of "serial," the series, to be published regularly in the same periodical, in this case, The Strand, with each instalment a complete story so that occasional readers would not be disappointed by unfinished narratives but regular readers might appreciate the continuity of characters and settings.

Heinlein meant his Future History to be bound together not by continuing characters but by background details like place names in the Lunar, Martian and Venerian colonies. Anderson does this even better in his Technic History but this is where I break off for today. Thank you all for your attention and patience.