Detective Fiction
Mysteries and their solutions have always been used in fiction, but detective fiction as a recognisable genre first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Despite detective fiction ...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1928 as the introduction to the anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery, and Horror (published in the U.S. as the first Omnibus of Crime, 19...
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In the following essay, originally published in 1937, Stein utilizes her experimental style of writing to capture the essence of the crime-mystery-detective story and the nature of its appeal to the r...
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In the following essay, Queen provides an overview of the development of the crime-mystery-detective story from the 1840s to the 1940s.
I. Prenatal Note
The first violent crime of literature was a ...
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In the following essay, Leitch compares a number of crime-mystery-detective novels to the short stories from which they were expanded.
The detective story, with its persistent emphasis on the one c...
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In the following introduction to an anthology of crime-mystery-detective stories that focuses on pairs of detective-heroes working together, Muller and Pronzini provide an overview of detective duos c...
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In the following essay, Sweeney discusses crime-mystery-detective short stories in which the protagonist is faced with his or her own double, contending that these stories address themes of identity c...
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In the following essay, Hillerman provides a brief overview of the development of the crime-mystery-detective story over the course of the twentieth century.
If I, alone, were stuck with the Hercul...
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In the following essay, Knight traces the origins and development of the modern crime-mystery-detective story.
At the center of modern crime fiction stands an investigating agent—an amateur ...
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In the following essay, Panek discusses a number of authors of crime-mystery-detective stories who wrote during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
When Doyle prematurely killed Holm...
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In the following essay, Priestman provides an overview of the development of the crime-mystery-detective story from the 1840s to World War I.
The detective whodunnit focuses primarily on identifyin...
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In the following essay, Geherin traces the development of hard-boiled crime-mystery-detective fiction from its roots in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Although it is an Amer...
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In the following essay, Smith investigates the pulp magazines, such as Black Mask, that developed the hard-boiled detective story.
Into this underworld of literature most of us never dive unless, l...
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In the following essay, Horsley provides an overview of hard-boiled crime-mystery-detective fiction as it developed through the short stories and serialized novels of pulp fiction magazines.
At the...
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In the following introduction to an anthology of crime-mystery-detective stories by gay and lesbian authors, Nava provides an overview of the selections included in the volume.
Though it is the bas...
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In the following introduction to an anthology of crime-mystery-detective stories written by women, Brownworth considers the contributions of female authors to the development of the genre, and provide...
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In the following essay, Walton argues that the short story anthology is an ideal medium through which lesser-known women crime-mystery-detective authors can gain a popular readership in an industry th...
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In the following forward and introduction to a Jewish crime-mystery-detective anthology, King and Raphael define the term kabbalah and discuss the connections between Jewish mystical thought and the c...
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In the following essay, first published in a 1985 French language edition of Fiction, Narratologie, Texte, Genre, Gillespie observes that authorial interest in textual interpretation, evident in ninet...
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In the following essay, Morris explains how detective fiction mirrored Victorian attitudes and conventions regarding crime, as writers struggled to move from a stance of empty moralizing to a deeper u...
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In the following excerpt, Thomas illustrates the similarities and connections between the investigative techniques employed by detectives in nineteenth-century literature and Freudian methods and theo...
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In the following essay, Thomas suggests that Victorian society's desperate need to distance itself from the world of crime reflects a feeling of collective guilt caused by Britain's impe...
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In the following essay, Thomas asserts that Victorian attitudes toward crime fiction persist in twentieth-century criticism.
From its first appearance—usually traced to Edgar Allan Poe in Am...
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Which work won a 2007 Edgar Allan Poe award for best play? Elementary, my dear reader! It was "Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure," by Steven Dietz.That wasn't the only Edgar award winner with Si...
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AFTER DARKBy Haruki Murakami Alfred A. Knopf, 191 pages, $22.95
Haruki Murakami works wonders with daytime. In the Japanese novelist’s very best books—Dance Dance Dance (1988) and The W...
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THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNIONBy Michael Chabon HarperCollins, 414 pages, $26.95
I’m not wild about hardboiled detective fiction. Raymond Chandler may paint a gritt...
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Here’s a pop quiz: Which of the following fictional detectives was not created by a female writer: (a) private investigator Kinsey Millhone (b) medical examiner Kay Scarpetta (c) caterer Gold...
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Detective Fiction
Critical Essay by Dorothy L. Sayers
In Typical Detective Stories Males Are Always the Detectives
Solved: Poe mystery awards are announced
