In the hands of many of the great writers, the unravelling of mystery is only one strand within a complex project. Other things get unravelled, too - the belief in a rationally explicable world, in the beneficent, ordering force of culture and civilization. Constantly the detective story delights in muddying the waters, in acknowledging the omnipresent possibilities of anarchy and carnage. As a genre, it is supremely able to combine popular appeal with the ability to disturb, provoke and challenge the reader.
The essays in this volume all pay tribute to, and seek to account for, the astonishing durability of the detective story as a narrative genre. They range generously, taking a variety of theoretical approaches and including detective fiction in languages other than English, but particular attention is paid to the 'Golden Age' of English detective story-writing and to the 'hard-boiled' American version of the genre. This is a collection that will appeal to the scholar and to the devotee alike; to all those, in fact, who cannot resist the lure of finding out whodunit.
'The Art of Detective Fiction is ground breaking. Its essays can be loosely grouped into revisionary histories of the genre, new critical maps of contemporary practice, and valuable attention to women's writing that both looks at gender as a subversive force and shows the potency of the detecting form in shoring up gender conventions. The Art of Detective Fiction is a landmark in the critical reception of its genre.' - Susan Rowland, Association for Research into Popular Fiction
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; M.Swales
Poe and the Beautiful Segar Girl; J.Skvorecky
Body Language: A Study of Death and Gender in Crime Fiction; S.Dunant
Fascination and Nausea: Finding Our the Hard-Boiled Way; D.Trotter
The Writers who Knew Too Much: Populism and Paradox in Detective Fiction's Golden Age; D.Glover
'Sherlock's Children: The Birth of the Series; M.Priestman
Making the Dead Speak: Spiritualism and Detective Fiction; C.Willis
The Locus of Disruption: Serial Murder and Generic Conventions in Detective Fiction; D.Schmid
The Detective as Clown: A Taxonomy; A.Laski
Mean Streets and English Gardens; W.Chernaik
Authority, Social Anxiety and the Body in Crime Fiction: Patricia Corwell's Unnatural Exposure; P.Messent
Desires and Devices: On Women Detectives in Fiction; B.Berglund
A Band of Sisters; M.Kinsman
An Urban Myth: Fantômas and the Surrealists; R.Vilain
Bleeding the Thriller: Alain Robbe-Grillet's Intertextual Crimes; J.C.Brown
Railway Novel: Railway Spine; L.Marcus
Open Letter to Detectives and Psychoanalysts: Analysis and Reading; P.Ffrench
Index
WARREN CHERNAIK is Emeritus Professor in English of the University of London, Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton, and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. His publications include The Poetry of Limitation: A Study of Edmund Waller (1968) The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell (1983) and Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature (1995).
MARTIN SWALES is Professor of German at University College London. He has written monographs on Arthur Schnitzler (1971), the German Novelle (1977), and German realistic fiction (1995 and 1997).
ROBERT VILAIN is Lecturer in German at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has written a monograph on Hugo von Hofmannsthal and articles on European literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially its relation with music. He has co-edited a volume of essays on Yvan and Claire Goll (1997).
Description
In the hands of many of the great writers, the unravelling of mystery is only one strand within a complex project. Other things get unravelled, too - the belief in a rationally explicable world, in the beneficent, ordering force of culture and civilization. Constantly the detective story delights in muddying the waters, in acknowledging the omnipresent possibilities of anarchy and carnage. As a genre, it is supremely able to combine popular appeal with the ability to disturb, provoke and challenge the reader.
The essays in this volume all pay tribute to, and seek to account for, the astonishing durability of the detective story as a narrative genre. They range generously, taking a variety of theoretical approaches and including detective fiction in languages other than English, but particular attention is paid to the 'Golden Age' of English detective story-writing and to the 'hard-boiled' American version of the genre. This is a collection that will appeal to the scholar and to the devotee alike; to all those, in fact, who cannot resist the lure of finding out whodunit.
Reviews
'The Art of Detective Fiction is ground breaking. Its essays can be loosely grouped into revisionary histories of the genre, new critical maps of contemporary practice, and valuable attention to women's writing that both looks at gender as a subversive force and shows the potency of the detecting form in shoring up gender conventions. The Art of Detective Fiction is a landmark in the critical reception of its genre.' - Susan Rowland, Association for Research into Popular Fiction
Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction; M.Swales
Poe and the Beautiful Segar Girl; J.Skvorecky
Body Language: A Study of Death and Gender in Crime Fiction; S.Dunant
Fascination and Nausea: Finding Our the Hard-Boiled Way; D.Trotter
The Writers who Knew Too Much: Populism and Paradox in Detective Fiction's Golden Age; D.Glover
'Sherlock's Children: The Birth of the Series; M.Priestman
Making the Dead Speak: Spiritualism and Detective Fiction; C.Willis
The Locus of Disruption: Serial Murder and Generic Conventions in Detective Fiction; D.Schmid
The Detective as Clown: A Taxonomy; A.Laski
Mean Streets and English Gardens; W.Chernaik
Authority, Social Anxiety and the Body in Crime Fiction: Patricia Corwell's Unnatural Exposure; P.Messent
Desires and Devices: On Women Detectives in Fiction; B.Berglund
A Band of Sisters; M.Kinsman
An Urban Myth: Fantômas and the Surrealists; R.Vilain
Bleeding the Thriller: Alain Robbe-Grillet's Intertextual Crimes; J.C.Brown
Railway Novel: Railway Spine; L.Marcus
Open Letter to Detectives and Psychoanalysts: Analysis and Reading; P.Ffrench
Index
Authors
WARREN CHERNAIK is Emeritus Professor in English of the University of London, Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton, and Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. His publications include The Poetry of Limitation: A Study of Edmund Waller (1968) The Poet's Time: Politics and Religion in the Work of Andrew Marvell (1983) and Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature (1995).
MARTIN SWALES is Professor of German at University College London. He has written monographs on Arthur Schnitzler (1971), the German Novelle (1977), and German realistic fiction (1995 and 1997).
ROBERT VILAIN is Lecturer in German at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has written a monograph on Hugo von Hofmannsthal and articles on European literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially its relation with music. He has co-edited a volume of essays on Yvan and Claire Goll (1997).
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