Isn't Poe credited with writing the first detective story..? ''The Murders In The Rue Morgue''?
Of course. And along with it the arch typical detective who is generally a brilliant, misogynistic (unless female), loner, with a rather low opinion of the rest of humankind. They also usually have deep personal problems (hinted at by Poe but expanded on by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes). As I noted earlier, the archetype still sells.
Poe enjoyed more success as a literary critic while he was alive than as a fiction writer. He is credited with starting the modern literary criticism style, along with the biting "wit" which often characterizes it. I think that his literary criticism is an often overlooked key to understanding his stories. Poe was of the opinion that good literature must have depth as well as entertainment value. So he is best understood by looking beyond the obvious.
Poe liked to ground his work in reality, rather than the fantastical unreality of contemporaries such as Mary Shelley and her character Frankenstein. So one can easily get lost in the realities of stories like The Cask Of Amontillado, The Pit and The Pendulum, and his other Gothic stories, all of which could possibly happen in life. Even The Fall of the House of Usher is grounded in reality where he uses the device of a known medical problem of the time to set up the horror which includes being entombed alive, a fear not just of Poe but the majority of folks at the time. What happens in Usher is all the more horrifying because we realize on an instinctive level that it could very well end up happening to us.
I view his detective stories as the logical extension of his penchant for puzzles on many levels.
Forscher