LITR 240 - Mysteries, Detective and Crime Fiction

From the execution sermons of the Colonial era to television programs like The Wire and The Sopranos, crime writing has played an important role in American culture. Its ability to register fear, desire and anxiety has made it a popular genre with a wide audience. These new essays, written for students as well as readers of crime fiction, demonstrate the very best in contemporary scholarship and challenge long-established notions of the development of the detective novel. Each chapter covers a sub-genre, from 'true crime' to hard-boiled novels, illustrating the ways in which 'popular' and 'high' literary genres influence and shape each other. With a chronology and guide to further reading, this Companion is a helpful guide for students of American literature and readers of crime fiction.

Crime fiction has been one of the most popular genres since the 19th century, but has roots in works as varied as Sophocles, Herodotus, and Shakespeare. In this Very Short Introduction Richard Bradford explores the history of the genre, by considering the various definitions of "crime fiction"and looking at how it has developed over time. Discussing the popularity of crime fiction worldwide and its various styles; the role that gender plays within the genre; spy fiction, and legal dramas and thrillers; he explores how the crime novel was shaped by the work of British and American authorsin the 18th and 19th centuries.Highlighting the works of notorious authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler - to name but a few - he considers the role of the crime novel in modern popular culture and asks whether we can, and whether we should, consider crime fiction serious"literature".ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Crime Fiction Handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the origins, development, and cultural significance of the crime fiction genre, focusing mainly on American British, and Scandinavian texts. Provides an accessible and well-written introduction to the genre of crime fiction Moves with ease between a general overview of the genre and useful theoretical approaches Includes a close analysis of the key texts in the crime fiction tradition Identifies what makes crime fiction of such cultural importance and illuminates the social and political anxieties at its heart. Shows the similarities and differences between British, American, and Scandinavian crime fiction traditions  

A reference for lovers of the mystery genre looks at mystery writers, famous and lesser known, in an A-to-Z format, and offers a cross-referenced catalog of titles, characters, and movie adaptations.

From the penny dreadful, which challenges seekers of sensation to discover the truth in a pattern of gory details; to the twentieth-century detective novel, which offers an intricate puzzle solved through the application of the intellect; to the crime novel, which probes the psyches of thecharacters, the crime and mystery genre offers readers an intellectual excitement unsurpassed by other forms of fiction. Now The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing provides scholars and fans of this genre with an authoritative yet playful compendium of knowledge about a literature knownfor its highly entertaining treatment of deadly serious puzzles.Editor Rosemary Herbert has brought together 666 articles--written by such authorities as Edward D. Hoch, Sara Paretsky, and the late Julian Symons--that will accompany readers in their armchair investigations. Here can be found informative biographies of great mystery writers from Edgar AllanPoe to Rex Stout to Ruth Rendell. Here, too, favorite sleuths--including Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Nero Wolfe, Adam Dalgliesh, and Kinsey Milhone--keep company with master criminals such as Professor Moriarty and Fu Manchu. Character types--from the country constable to theomniscient sleuth to the femme fatale--sleuth, think, or slink within these pages.In the great tradition of Oxford Companions, this volume features extended essays on the development of this literature, its subgenres and schools of writing. It also serves as a catalogue of the components of mystery writing, such as famous clues, authorial ingenuity, and even an entry on "TheButler Did It." A strength of the volume is found in linked articles which can guide readers from, for instance, a careful definition of Murder to a delightfully quirky compendium of fictional victims in an article on The Corpse.

Covering a broad spectrum of primary and secondary reference resources about mystery and detective fiction, this annotated bibliography focuses on all print and key electronic sources in the field that are produced in English. Organized thematically, it reviews encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, annotated guides, bibliographies, bio-bibliographies, vade mecums, compendiums, indexes, and so on. Many Web sites are also described. Lengthy, informed reviews often provide evaluative information and compare books to similar or related titles. Essential to researchers, this is a valuable guide for any collection that holds a substantial number of mystery and detective titles, including college, university, public, and some high school libraries.

The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction is a comprehensive introduction to crime fiction and crime fiction scholarship today. Across forty-five original chapters, specialists in the field offer innovative approaches to the classics of the genre as well as ground-breaking mappings of emerging themes and trends. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I, Approaches,rearticulates the key theoretical questions posed by the crime genre. Part II, Devices,examines the textual characteristics of the genre. Part III, Interfaces, investigates the complex ways in which crime fiction engages with the defining issues of its context - from policing and forensic science through war, migration and narcotics to digital media and the environment. Engagingly written and drawing on examples from around the world, this volume is indispensable to both students and scholars of crime fiction.