1. The word “detective” for a crime-solver, was first used in 1843.
2. The first known use of the phrase “detective story” was in 1883 in the title of a crime story by the American author Anna Katharine Green.
3. The first literary detective was probably C Auguste Dupin in Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story Murders In The Rue Morgue.
4. Poe may have been inspired by the memoirs of the Sûreté detective agency’s Eugène Vidocq.
5. Wilkie Collins’ The Woman In White (1859) was the first full-length detective novel.
6. One of the great mysteries of crime novels is the identity of the author of The Notting Hill Mystery (1862-63) which is still not known for sure.
7. Conan Doyle is said to have modelled Sherlock Holmes on Scottish surgeon and lecturer Joseph Bell who was a pioneer in forensic science.
8. In the 1969 Oxford-Cambridge chess match, two Oxford winners were named Holmes and Watson.
9. Despite the title of the TV series Inspector Morse, he was a chief inspector in all the books.
10. “A really good detective never gets married.” (Raymond Chandler).