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

Nameless

Gender: Male

Nobody, except possibly author Bill Pronzini, knows what the Nameless Detective is actually called – although on one occasion he is referred to as Bill. Little is said about the man himself, but Nameless (as he is called) is a middle-aged, former agent in military intelligence and police officer, who is a partner in a private detective agency. He has an on-and-off romance with Kerry, whom he e...

Further reading