In a flurry of purchases that include two comedies and a soap, ABC picked up a mystery series centering on Edgar Allan Poe.

Titled simply Poe, the one-hour drama is described as a crime procedural that transforms the famed author and poet into the world's first detective, who uses "unconventional methods to investigate dark mysteries in 1840s Boston."

It's not exactly a leap for Poe, whose 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is often considered the first detective story, and his protagonist C. Auguste Dupin the first fictional detective. Poe himself has been cast as a fictional detective on several occasions, notably in the 2003 comic-book miniseries Batman: Nevermore and in the novels The Last Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe: The Troy Dossier (1978) and The Pale Blue Eye (2006). He also appears in Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which is being adapted for film by producer Tim Burton and director Timur Bekmambetov.

Chris Hollier (Alias, Kyle XY) wrote the script for Poe, and will serve as supervising producer. Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes, The Departed) is executive producer.