Meny

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figure

Kate Fansler

Gender: Female

Like her creator Amanda Cross (pseudonym for Carolyn G. Heilbrun) Kate Fansler is a professor of Literature, independent and respected, as well as being an active feminist. When Fansler marries Reed Amhearst, she refuses to adopt his surname or wear a wedding ring. Besides which the slim and attractive middle-aged lady is a skilled amateur detective who solves her cases mainly by talking with...

Further reading