Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science

ISBN-13: 9780521653039 / Angielski / Twarda / 2000 / 362 str.

Ronald R. Thomas

Opis

This is the first book about the relationship between the development of forensic science in the nineteenth century and the new literary genre of detective fiction in Britain and America--from Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne through Twain and Conan Doyle to Hammett, Chandler and Christie. Ronald R. Thomas is especially concerned with the authority the literary detective manages to secure through the "devices"--fingerprinting, photography, lie detectors--and the way in which those devices relate to broader questions of cultural authority at decisive moments in the history of the genre.

Recenzje

'Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science is a major achievement.' Semiotica

Spis treści

1. The devices of truth; Part I. Tell-Tale Hearts: 2. The lie detector and the thinking machine; 3. The unequal voice in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'; 4. The letter of the law in The Woman in White; 5. The criminal type in 'A Case of Identity'; 6. The voice of America in Red Harvest; Part II. Arresting Shots: 7. The mug shot and the magnifying glass; 8. Photographic memories in Bleak House; 9. Double exposure in The House of the Seven Gables; 10. Negative images in 'A Scandal in Bohemia'; 11. Empty cameras in The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely; Part III. Identifying Marks: 12. The fingerprint and the map of crime; 13. Foreign bodies in A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four; 14. Accusing hands in Puddn'head Wilson; 15. International plots in The Maltese Falcon and Murder on the Orient Express; 16. Missing persons and secret agents; Selected works for further reading.