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

Dangerous Davies

Gender: Male

A worn-out, tired detective constable in London. His first name is unknown, everybody calls him ‘Dangerous’ which is pure satire, his creator Leslie Thomas carefully points out. ‘Dangerous’ Davies is single, middle-aged, shabbily dressed, has a grey face, rents a room from a strict elderly lady who forces him to let his St Bernhard dog, Kitty, live in a scrap car. But he nevertheless manages to so...

Further reading