Early examples of armchair detectives in literature include
C. Auguste Dupin in
Edgar Allan Poe's
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1842), who arrives at the correct explanation for a young woman's mysterious disappearance working wholly from newspaper accounts. Amateur detective Tabaret in
Émile Gaboriau's
Monsieur Lecoq books, published from 1865. Both appear before the introduction of Mycroft in the
Sherlock Holmes novels in 1893.
Baroness Orczy's
Old Man in the Corner, first appearing in 1901, sits in a restaurant and solves crime cases while talking with an acquaintance.
Lancelot Priestley appeared in a long-running series of novels by
Cecil Street after making his debut in
The Paddington Mystery (1925). A very literal example is
Nero Wolfe, created by
Rex Stout in 1934, who only leaves his house in exceptional circumstances, typically delegating the legwork for his cases to his assistant. In the novella
Before I Die, Wolfe says, "I would be an idiot to leave this chair, made to fit me." Marian Phipps, a character appearing from 1937 in stories by
Phyllis Bentley, is a detective novelist who begins solving cases that a policeman friend relates to her. More recent examples include
L Lawliet from
Death Note (2004), who reads case files to find unsolved crimes, which he then investigates.
Lord El-Melloi II, in the light novel
Fate/strange Fake (2006) provides a number of tips and solutions relating to the Holy Grail War taking place in North America, while he is in London. ==Magazine==