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

Paul Beck

Gender: Male

This English private detective – well known in his day – is a well-built middle-aged man with blue eyes, sideburns and a friendly demeanour: he could be mistaken for a retired milkman, explains author M. McDonnell Bodkin. Paul Beck is a respected detective, and in 1909 he marries his professional colleague, Dora Myrl. Already two years later, their now adult son Paul Beck Jr. solves his first cas...

Further reading