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

Burke

Gender: Male

He is a violent and tough ‘private’ crime-fighter (without a licence) in New York. Like his creator, lawyer Andrew Vachss, he combats sex criminals, predominantly paedophiles, Burke – his first name is never mentioned – has himself had a tragic childhood during which he was sexually abused, and has also been in prison. He surrounds himself with an odd ‘family’ consisting of other former prison inm...

Further reading