The origins of the detective
Apr. 5th, 2008 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylToday's Guardian Review features a good piece by Kate Summerscale which traces the origins of the detective novel.
Citing Lady Audley's Secret and The Moonstone as examples, Summerscale convincingly shows how the claustrophobic, familial brand of English crime fiction grew out of a murder which took place in 1860 at a house called Road Hill. The case had all the elements of a sensationalist novel — the murder of one of member of a middle-class family by another; the involvement of one of the first police detectives; the idea that logical and deduction could be used to solve a crime — with effects, both direct and indirect, on literature ever since, from M.R. to P.D. James.
Citing Lady Audley's Secret and The Moonstone as examples, Summerscale convincingly shows how the claustrophobic, familial brand of English crime fiction grew out of a murder which took place in 1860 at a house called Road Hill. The case had all the elements of a sensationalist novel — the murder of one of member of a middle-class family by another; the involvement of one of the first police detectives; the idea that logical and deduction could be used to solve a crime — with effects, both direct and indirect, on literature ever since, from M.R. to P.D. James.
