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

Philip St. Ives

Gender: Male

As a journalist, he had a lot of shady contacts, which he makes use of when as a private detective he serves as a courier between crime victims and criminals when it comes to, for example, returning stolen goods. Philip St. Ives is single, divorced with a son. He is on the side of the villains as long as they don’t try to cheat him – which they often try to do according to author Oliver Bleeck (ps...

Further reading