| Description |
1 online resource (xv, 222 pages) |
| Series |
Crime files series |
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Crime files series.
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| Contents |
Revising the canon of crime and detection -- Detection before detection -- Persecution and omniscience -- Victorian ghosts and revengers -- Pseudo-sciences and the occult -- The language of Auguste Dupin -- On the sensational in literature -- London as a 'heart of darkness' -- The rhetoric of atavism and degeneration -- The age of formula fiction |
| Summary |
A Counter-History of Crime Fiction takes a new look at the evolution of crime fiction, drawing on material from the Middle Ages up to the early twentieth century, when the genre was theoretically defined as detective fiction. Considering 'criminography' as a system of inter-related, even incestuous, sub-genres, Maurizio Ascari explores the connections between modes of literature such as revenge tragedies and providential fictions, the gothic and the ghost story, urban mysteries and anarchist fiction, while taking into account the influence of pseudo-sciences such as mesmerism and criminal anthropology. The result is a fascinating inquiry into the nature of a genre whose formulaic nature has not prevented imaginative, not to say heretical, variations on the themes of crime and detection. Theoretically informed, with an innovative approach to its subject matter, and written in an accessible style, A Counter-History of Crime Fiction is essential reading for those researching in, studying, or just intrigued by crime fiction and its development |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-212) and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Detective and mystery stories, English -- History and criticism
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Supernatural in literature.
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Sensationalism in literature.
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Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers.
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Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900.
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Literary essays.
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Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
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Literature.
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Detective and mystery stories, English
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Sensationalism in literature
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Supernatural in literature
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780230234536 |
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0230234534 |
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9780230594623 |
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023059462X |
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