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

Miles Bredon

Gender: Male

A well-built, absentminded and somewhat lethargic private detective – in school, however, he was a promising runner – who has just one employer: an insurance company. Miles Bredon’s task is to investigate fraud, including life insurance cases. He is married to Angela, a quick-thinking conversation partner, who according to author Ronald A. Knox is ‘a little bit smarter’ than her husband. They have...

Further reading