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

George Challenger

Gender: Male

Professor Challenger is an impressive figure – in several ways. He is a research scientist in various subjects, has a large body and an enormous head, a black full beard and a dominating personality. He is also conceited and has a bad temper, as well as being the main character if three novels with a specific fantasy element by Arthur Conan Doyle, who based him on a teacher he had himself been t...

Further reading