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

Travis McGee

Gender: Male

A former footballer and war veteran, living on a house-boat in Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Travis McGee is the main character in 21 novels by John D. MacDonald, in which he sometimes features as a private detective, but just likes to help people with problems. He is attractive to women, and has a lot of temporary relationships. He is clever at solving problems – but sometimes follows a c...

Further reading