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.
Literary figure
John Thorndyke
Gender: Male
A classic in crime literature, regarded as the first ‘scientific’ detective. Dr John Evelyn Thorndyke not only has degrees in Law and Medicine, he is also a forensic technician and pathologist, explains R. Austin Freeman in his books. Thorndyke is tall and strong, he is handsome, has exceptionally good eyesight and hearing, and a clever laboratory assistant called Polton.