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

Stan (Standish) Rice

Gender: Male

According to author Baynard Kendrick, Miles Standish ‘Stan’ Rice usually introduces himself as ‘Stan Rice – the hungry’. And he certainly can eat, lots, but nevertheless the 190cm-tall sheriff is as thin ‘as a skeleton’. He also has yellowy blonde hair, blue eyes and wears ill-fitting, wrinkled clothes. He is active in Florida, where he solves cases which often include what seem to be supernatural...

Further reading