Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (エドガー・アラン・ポオ,) is the former master architect of the Guild, and his ability is Black Cat in the Rue Morgue.

Appearance
Poe is a young man with a dark brown mullet with purpleish undertones that cover his eyes and hangs around his neck. From the few instances where his eyes are visible, he has dark circles under them, and although his eyes appear to be a grey color, with certain lighting and angles, they are actually violet. He wears a white mandarin collar button-up shirt with a white loosely tied ribbon around his neck. He has a black vest under an open cream colored tailcoat that is torn around the bottom, and colored lapels. Over that he wears a thigh-length black cape held together by a chain clasp. He has a belt with a large square buckle and his pants are dark with light pinstripes. His boots are high heeled and have black soles and are folded at the top and end just below the knees. He almost always has Karl on his shoulders.

During his younger years, Poe has longer hair which is tied into a low undercut ponytail. He also wears a simple sweater vest, a typical male uniform.

During the agency's frameup and Ranpo Edogawa's rescue to get Yukichi Fukuzawa out from detainment, Poe wears a black suit and black tinted glasses with his hair slicked back as a disguise.

Personality
Poe spent six years trying to come up with a plot that could finally outwit and defeat Ranpo Edogawa, showing that he will work hard at something he cares about, he's determined, highly intelligent, competitive, passionate, a perfectionist, and introverted. He often talks too quietly for others to hear and he's very socially awkward and hates crowds and large social gatherings.

He's rather wealthy and sometimes reckless with his money and tends to have random outbursts of confidence and cockiness when he isn't comparing himself to Ranpo, even calling himself an "intellectual giant", introducing himself with a monologue of all his titles borderline bragging about them with a confident wink and a smirk.

He seems to have a capricious mood, first appearing confident and cold when confronting Ranpo, then suddenly depressed when Ranpo didn't know who he was. He later got very excited when he believed that he had beaten Ranpo, to the point of laughing uncontrollably. He gets jealous quite easily and often especially when it comes to Ranpo and his own pride and intelligence, which of course lead to that six year long plot of revenge. His angle was that of a Guild member obsessed with revenge through showing Ranpo his intricate murder mystery plot, though Ranpo soon acknowledges him and the time he took on making the six-year murder mystery plot causing him to idolize Ranpo striving to evolve his craft with the hope that one day he might exceed and finally defeat his rival, or at least catch up with Ranpo.

He still consistently tries to defeat and outsmart Ranpo to this day with new novels and manuscripts which so far has had no luck. Poe always comes to visit Ranpo at the Agency whenever he has a new challenge to offer. Although it seemingly has gotten less serious overtime with Poe saying that he wouldn't know what to do with himself if Ranpo were to truly die from one of his novels and they more so have grown to be trusted friends with one another. Other than Ranpo, however, he isn't known to have many friends. With the exception of his raccoon, Karl, who he considers his greatest and most trustworthy friend.

Ability
Poe's ability, Black Cat in the Rue Morgue (モルグの,), can transport readers into the setting of any mystery novel, specifically any murder mystery novel, other genres do not work with his ability and it must be one they are currently reading.

Background
Poe is a detective from America who was "beaten" by Ranpo in an investigation competition six years prior to the events of the series. The defeat leads to him withdrawing himself from his personal connections and becoming extremely secluded and depressed. However, this defeat also inspired him to take back the life that he felt Ranpo had stolen from him. He then joined the Guild and came to Japan in order to challenge him directly.

Etymology

 * The name Edgar is of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning "rich" (ead) and "spear" (gear).
 * The middle name Allan is of Irish origin meaning "handsome".
 * The surname Poe is of English origin, meaning "peacock".

Trivia

 * The birth name of the real life is Edgar Poe. He was later adopted by the Allan family.
 * In reality, Edgar Allan Poe never had a raccoon as a pet (although he had a cat that used to ride on his shoulders). This was most likely taken from the 2012 film The Raven, where John Cusack as Poe chose to keep a raccoon given to him. It was, of course, made up by John.
 * In real life, Ranpo Edogawa's name came from a Japanese pronunciation of Edgar Allan Poe.
 * Poe is thus far one of the two characters with an ability that has more than one different references to its name (The Black Cat and The Murders in the Rue Morgue). The other ability user with a similar case is Mark Twain, whose ability is a reference to two novels.
 * Poe is afraid of heights.
 * Poe’s biggest hang-up is being abandoned at a party by his only acquaintance.
 * Poe’s ringtone is a raven’s caw.
 * Poe has a Black Cat pin on his vest, referencing the work "The Black Cat".