SOURCE: Stein, Gertrude. “Why I Like Detective Stories.” In How Writing is Written, edited by Robert Bartlett Haas, pp. 146-50. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1974.

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 reader.

Life said Edgar is neither long nor short, and anybody knows that the only detective stories that anybody can read are written by Edgar. When Gerald Berners was here and his chauffeur William they both wanted detective stories, I gave William Edgar Wallace, he wanted Edgar Wallace, I cannot say that Gerald Berners did, but then he might have, anyway I had them to give them and I always find a new one by him, you might think other people wrote them but finally you know better, you finally do know that...