Detective fiction's real origins lurk in the popular press of the early nineteenth century, where the detective and the case were steadily developed. The well-known masters of early crime fiction, including Collins and Dickens, drew on this material, found in texts that have rarely been reprinted or even discussed. Heather Worthington combines scholarly and archival study with theoretically informed analysis to unearth the foundations of detective fiction.
Detection existed in fiction long before Poe and Doyle. Its real origins lurk in the popular press of the early Nineteenth century, where the detective and the case were steadily developed. The well-known masters of early crime fiction, including Collins and Dickens, drew on this material, found in texts that have rarely been reprinted or even discussed. In this revealing book, Heather Worthington combines scholarly and archival study with theoretically informed analysis to unearth the foundations of detective fiction. This is essential reading for those researching in, studying, or just fascinated by crime fiction.
This is a book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the invention of the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America. Ronald R. Thomas examines the criminal body as a site of interpretation and enforcement in a wide range of fictional examples, from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. He is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the 'devices' - fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors - with which he discovers the truth and establishes his expertise, and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre. This is an interdisciplinary project, framing readings of literary texts with an analysis of contemporaneous developments in criminology, the rules of evidence, and modern scientific accounts of identity.
In Detecting the Nation, Reitz argues that detective fiction was essential both to public acceptance of the newly organized police force in early Victorian Britain and to acclimating the population to the larger venture of the British Empire. In doing so, Reitz challenges literary-historical assumptions that detective fiction is a minor domestic genre that reinforces a distinction between metropolitan center and imperial periphery. Rather, Reitz argues, nineteenth-century detective fiction helped transform the concept of an island kingdom to that of a sprawling empire; detective fiction placed imperialism at the center of English identity by recasting what had been the suspiciously un-English figure of the turn-of-the-century detective as the very embodiment of both English principles and imperial authority. She supports this claim through reading such masters of the genre as Godwin, Dickens, Collins, and Doyle in relation to narratives of crime and empire such as James Mill's History of British India, narratives about Thuggee, and selected writings of Kipling and Buchan. Detective fiction and writings more specifically related to the imperial project, such as political tracts and adventure stories, were inextricably interrelated during this time.
Edgar Allan Poe essentially invented the detective story in 1841 with Murders in the Rue Morgue. In the years that followed, however, detective fiction in America saw no significant progress as a literary genre. Much to the dismay of moral crusaders like Anthony Comstock, dime novels and other sensationalist publications satisfied the public's hunger for a yarn. Things changed as the century waned, and eventually the detective was reborn as a figure of American literature. In part these changes were due to a combination of social conditions, including the rise and decline of the police as an institution; the parallel development of private detectives; the birth of the crusading newspaper reporter; and the beginnings of forensic science. Influential, too, was the new role model offered by a wildly popular British import named Sherlock Holmes. Focusing on the late 19th century and early 20th, this volume covers the formative years of American detective fiction. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
'Detective Fiction' is a clear and compelling look at some of the best known, yet least-understood characters and texts of the modern day. Undergraduate students of Detective and Crime Fiction and of genre fiction in general, will find this book essential reading.
"Superb... Flanders's convincing and smart synthesis of the evolution of an official police force, fictional detectives, and real-life cause célèbres will appeal to devotees of true crime and detective fiction alike." -Publishers Weekly, starred review In this fascinating exploration of murder in nineteenth century England, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama-even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other-the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P.D. James and Patricia Cornwell. In this meticulously researched and engrossing book, Judith Flanders retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder in Great Britain, both famous and obscure: from Greenacre, who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus, to Burke and Hare's bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedy of the murdered Marr family in London's East End. Through these stories of murder-from the brutal to the pathetic-Flanders builds a rich and multi-faceted portrait of Victorian society in Great Britain. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the utterly dangerous, The Invention of Murder is both a mesmerizing tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.
Private detectives and detective agencies played a major role in American history from 1870 to 1940. Pinkerton, Burns, Thiels, and the smaller independents were a multi-million dollar industry, hired out by many if not most American corporations, who needed services of surveillance, strike breaking, and labor espionage. Not only is John Walton's account the first sustained history of this industry, it is also the first book to trace the ways in which the private detective came to occupy a cherished place in popular imagination. Walton paints lively portraits of these mythical figures from Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant eccentric, to Sam Spade, the hard-boiled hero of Dashiell Hammett's best-selling tales. There's a great question lurking in here: how did pulp magazine editors shape the image of the hard-boiled private eye, and what sorts of interplay obtained between the actual records (agency files, memoirs) of these motley individuals in real life and the legend of the private detective in mass-market fiction? This history of the private eyes and this account of how the detective industry and the culture industry played off of each other is a first. Walton show us, in clean clear outline, the figure of the classical private eye, and he shows us further how the memory of this iconic figure was sustained in fiction, radio, film, literary societies, product promotions, adolescent entertainments, and a subculture of detective enthusiasts.
In contrast to the main body of current Victorian detective criticism, which tends to concentrate on Conan Doyle’s creation and only uses other detectives as a backdrop, the texts gathered in this volume examine various contemporary ways of (re)presenting real and fictional detectives that originated in or are otherwise associated with that era: Inspector Bucket, Sergeant Cuff, Inspector Reid, Tobias Gregson, Flaxman Low, and psychiatrists as detectives. Such a collection allows for a critical re-assessment of both the detectives’ importance to the Victorian literature and culture and provides a better basis for understanding the reasons behind their contemporary returns, re-imaginings and re-creations, contributing to the creation of a base for further cultural and critical works dealing with reworkings of the Victorian era.
An insight into a popular yet complex genre that has developed over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volume explores the contemporary anxieties to which crime fiction responds, along with society's changing conceptions of crime and criminality. The book covers texts, contexts and criticism in an accessible and user-friendly format.
