What inspired the dime novel detective Nick Carter?

Question

What inspired the creation of the dime novel detective Nick Carter who was created by John R. Coryell and Ormond G. Smith?

Answer 1

This question was recently asked on Quora, and received the answer:

The dime novel detective character Nick Carter was created by John R. Coryell, a writer and publisher who worked under the pseudonym Nicholas Carter. Coryell was inspired to create the character after reading the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, and he intended for Nick Carter to be a more modern and practical detective who could solve crimes using scientific methods and deduction.

This answer cannot be completely correct, however, since the first short story featuring Carter appeared in The New York Weekly in 1886, one year before the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887.

Auguste Dupin, the analytical detective character created by Edgar Allan Poe, made his first appearance in The Murders of the Rue Morgue in 1841, and so certainly appears to be a more possible inspiration.

An article in Tangent magazine, however, simply states that Carter

was originally inspired by the real-life exploits of private investigator Allan Pinkerton.