Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Mystery & Detective Fiction

"Framed" uses fin de siecle British crime narrative to pose a highly interesting question: why do female criminal characters tend to be alluring and appealing while fictional male criminals of the era are unsympathetic or even grotesque?

In this elegantly argued study, Elizabeth Carolyn Miller addresses this question, examining popular literary and cinematic culture from roughly 1880 to 1914 to shed light on an otherwise overlooked social and cultural type: the conspicuously glamorous New Woman criminal. In so doing, she breaks with the many Foucauldian studies of crime to emphasize the...

Early in the twentieth century a new character type emerged in the crime novels of American writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler: the -hard-boiled- detective, most famously exemplified by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. Unlike the analytical detectives of nineteenth-century fiction, such as Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dupin, the new detectives encountered cases not as intricate logical puzzles but as stark challenges of manhood. In the stories of these characters and their criminal opposites, John T. Irwin explores the tension within ideas of American masculinity...

Kids love mysteries, and you will love promoting learning and literacy with this guide to the mystery genre! This book presents an introduction and a guide to using the various types of mysteries, including true crime, detective stories, ghosts and gothics, suspense, and many, many more! Engage learners and teach concepts within all subject areas! Content is ideal for public librarians as well as school librarians.

Within the broad field of contemporary literature, horror fiction has only recently developed into a genre which modern scholars may legitimately regard as being worthy of critical attention. This comparative study provides ample proof that horror fiction can be more profound and revealing than many literary critics imagined. The only study of its kind, this book offers detailed critical analysis of the child in horror fiction, with special emphasis on themes relating to the child's social position within the family and its war against parents or authority figures, as well as its various...

This volume presents a new aspect in the study of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: a case study of the publishing history of his works. Since Doyle's works before 1890 could not be copyrighted in the United States, various unauthorized versions of Holmes stories appeared in print in America from 1890 through 1930. Picking up where other bibliographers left off, Redmond traces the origins and subsequent printings and reprintings of these pirated manuscripts, relating the American editions to their sources and to each other. The American issues are described in detail, with defects and...

Famous for her classic novel "Little Women," and regarded as America's best-loved author of juvenile fiction, Louisa May Alcott is not readily identified with page-turning thrillers and sensational tales. Freaks of Genius, however, presents a collection of previously unknown sensational narratives by Alcott, originally published in the weekly storypapers of the 1860s and never before reprinted. The stories are startling examples of an atypical Alcott, delving into such subjects as violence and insanity, revenge and murder, and narcotics addiction and evil.

Included in the collection are...

This book is a no-apologies introduction to Detective Fiction. It's written in an aggressive, modern English well-suited to a genre which has traditionally broken ground in terms of aggressive writing, contemporary scenarios, and tough dialogue.

From its growth in Europe in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has developed into one of the most popular genres of literature and popular culture more widely. In this monograph, Mary Evans examines detective fiction and its complex relationship to the modern and to modernity. She focuses on two key themes: the moral relationship of detection (and the detective) to a particular social world and the attempt to restore and even improve the social world that has been threatened and fractured by a crime, usually that of murder. It is a characteristic of much detective fiction that...

Sherlock Holmes Handbook sums up a Canadian scholar's lifetime expertise about Sherlock Holmes - the characters and themes, the publishers and readers, Victorian London and the Houdini connection, radio actors and cartoonists, the fans who cling to Holmes's reality and the professors who tease out motifs from the fifty-six short stories and four novels.

The first edition of Sherlock Holmes Handbook appeared in 1993. This edition catches up on new films, new books (a few with a hint of the supernatural) and the advent of the Internet, which has spread Holmes's fame and...

The pleasures of mystery novels and speculative fiction double when the two genres meet in a single book. Placing a compelling mystery story within a paranormal context adds even more mystery to the story. While these books are popular with readers, locating them can be a challenge. They do not fit into any single category, so they get scattered through collections and store shelves, with some series shelved in science fiction, some in horror, and some in mystery.

Organized alphabetically by author name and series title, this detailed guide offers readers a one-stop reference and...