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

Fu Manchu

Gender: Male

The satanical, extremely intelligent and powerful gang leader was created by Sax Rohmer (pseudonym for Arthur Henry Ward) and has become something of an icon as regards super criminals – preferably Asians – who aspire to world domination. Fu Manchu has green eyes, a shaved head, long droopy moustaches, and has an arch enemy in British agent Nayland Smith who battles against him with varying suc...

Further reading