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

Patrick Petrella

Gender: Male

He spent his childhood in Spain, where his father was a police detective. When he was eight years old, his English mother sent him to her home country, and he came to stay there for good. Michael Gilbert has written two novels and more than 50 short stories about Patrick Petrella, who becomes a police officer, marries Jane Orfrey and has a son. Readers get to follow his professional career from...

Further reading