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

Race Williams

Gender: Male

He is considered to be the very first of the most cynical, violent and so-called hard-boiled detectives in crime fiction. He shoots first, and asks questions later, and is the main character in a suite of novels and short stories by Carroll John Daly. Race Williams is a large and strong man, quick-witted and skilled with weapons. He works first in New York and Chicago, and later on the American...

Further reading