Meny

Anniversaries, 1 November

Arthur Morrison

Arthur Morrison was one of Britain's best-known authors around the turn of the last century on account of his realistic portrayals of London's East End and his stories about the private detective Martin Hewitt.
Morrison was born in Poplar, a working-class district in London's East End. His father was an engine fitter. Morrison was ashamed of his background, and he later invented details about his childhood and parents. As a result, little is known about his early life except that he did...

Further reading

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

Bertie

Gender: Male

Bertie was the popular name for Albert Edward who was the son of Queen Victoria and between 1901 and 1910 King Edward VII. As a young Prince of Wales he was a notorious playboy who caused many scandals to the despair of his mother. He solves crime in a handful historical whodunits by Peter Lovesey.

Further reading