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

Domare Di

Gender: Male

Judge Dee is based on a real person, the legendary seventh century Chinese judge Dee Jen-Djieh. Stories about him began to be written down early on. They were discovered by the Dutch sinologist Robert van Gulik who wrote a series of mystery stories based on him. Most are based on van Gulik’s own storylines featuring Dee.

Further reading