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

Gabriel Hanaud

Gender: Male

A.E.W. Mason created his French Sûreté detective inspector as opposite to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Gabriel Hanaud is friendly, well-built and rather plump and has a square face. He speaks English with an entertaining accent. Together with is companion, Ricordo, he solves cases in France as well as England, and is regarded as having been a source of inspiration for writers like Christie and Sim...

Further reading