Meny

Anniversaries, 1 November

Arthur Morrison

Arthur Morrison was one of Britain's best-known authors around the turn of the last century on account of his realistic portrayals of London's East End and his stories about the private detective Martin Hewitt.
Morrison was born in Poplar, a working-class district in London's East End. His father was an engine fitter. Morrison was ashamed of his background, and he later invented details about his childhood and parents. As a result, little is known about his early life except that he did...

Further reading

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

John Rebus

Gender: Male

Rebus is a Scottish detective who usually works in Edinburgh where most of Ian Rankin’s novels about him are set. Rebus is a loner with cooperation issues and he is not always popular with his superiors. He has a drinking problem, he was born in Cardenden, Fife, in 1947 and he has no interest in politics. Rebus eventually retires from his job, but returns to join a cold case team.

Further reading